Tim Garland & Geoffrey Keezer

MEZZO is a brand-new duet recorded in New York this Spring by two Grammy Award-winning artists. The transatlantic meeting started 25 years ago with Garland's Made By Walking album on Chick Corea's label and continued with three albums with the "Storms/Nocturnes" trio (also featuring Joe Locke). Both seasoned players have globe-trotted with some of the most famous players in music and show their crystalline lyrical maturity as well as incendiary virtuosity in a set that features one new and rare instrument after which the album is named. There are only 20 handmade Mezzo-Soprano saxophones in the world. Garland's rich and expressive sound on the Mezzo features on six tracks, with the remaining two featuring his celebrated regular soprano. With references to a fully acoustic classical sensibility as well as jazz, stunning originals sit alongside renditions of famous pieces by Satie (Gnossienne), Cole Porter(Every Time We Say Goodbye) and NY scene legend Mulgrew Miller. As Peter Jessen, creator of the Mezzo Soprano Sax said recently, "Your sound and feel of it is really the realisation of everything I wanted it to be! Sublime playing and very fine writing" "While both Tim Garland and Geoffrey Keezer are at the top of their game as soloists on their respective instruments, the real genius of this collaboration shines in their choice of the duet format. As they carry on improvisational one-on-one conversations, every chord, every fragment of melody just fits perfectly from start to finish on every track of this record. This just may be the best jazz duet I have ever heard." GARY BURTON"Beautiful music of course. Tim's saxophone tone is good enough to eat." BILL BRUFORD"The oneness of their communication and execution is magical." JOE LOVANO"Few world-class jazz improvisers are comparably imaginative composers, but the British reeds player Tim Garland is that rarity." THE GUARDIAN"Geoffrey isa composer and conceptualist who can maintain the overall line and the DNA of the song in everything he plays. A musician's musician." STING