Canadian vocalist Gillian Margot and American pianist Geoffrey Keezer are acclaimed both as individuals and as a duo, in music and in life. Geoffrey has been a major figure in New York’s jazz piano scene since 1989, when he became the last pianist with the legendary Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He has toured and recorded with Ray Brown, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Diana Krall, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Wayne Shorter, Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Chris Botti, Sting, Joe Locke and Christian McBride. Gillian is a student of a generation of jazz legends including Oscar Peterson, Freddy Cole, and Norman Simmons. She has performed in major venues worldwide with musicians including Sting, jazz trumpeters Chris Botti and Jeremy Pelt, pianist Robert Glasper, famed soprano Kathleen Battle, conductors Wayne Marshall (London Philharmonic) and Jukka-Pekka Saraste (Toronto Symphony Orchestra). Gillian and Geoffrey live in New York and have a seven year-old child.
UK Jazz News: What is the best advice you received about balancing/juggling parenthood and career?
Gillian Margot: The best advice that I received was from my sound engineer, tour manager and dear friend Terry, who picked up the phone and called me during my first few months as a new mom. I was in Los Angeles with our baby and Geoffrey was on tour. Terry called me from Toronto to see how I was doing and said flat out, “There is no balance, momma. You have to go with the flow.” If I’m honest, that may have been the only parenting advice that ended up making sense. Trying to impose too much structure can be totally counterproductive. I’m a natural improviser, and so it worked for me.
Geoffrey Keezer: For me, it wasn’t spoken advice as much as just observing musicians I was with on the road who had kids at home. Seeing how they would take time to call their families every day. Some guys would fly home to New York from Europe in the middle of a tour to attend their kid’s birthday party, then take a redeye flight back to Europe and make the gig the next night.
UKJN: What information or advice do you wish you’d received but didn’t (and had to learn through trial and error or on the go)?
GM: (laughs) Everything else!
UKJN: Your top tip(s) for other parents in jazz:
GK: My tip would be to find any and every way you can to earn income without having to tour constantly. Find and create sources of passive income, royalties, teaching, or whatever you have to do to be around your kids more. They grow up SO fast – it’s a cliché because it’s true. Another reality is that with kids, getting anything done like practicing, writing arrangements, booking gigs/travel etc takes a LOT longer, due to the constant distractions and your focus being pulled in multiple directions all the time. Children need and deserve their parents’ time and attention, and they always take top priority no matter what else is going on. But sometimes I’m like “Dude, you’re gonna have to figure out this Lego thing on your own, I gotta finish a big band chart!”.
GM: Everyone, whether you know them or not, offers advice on how to parent your child. And while having a lot of options to consider is never a bad thing, and I’m the kind of person who likes to gather a lot of information and do research, your best bet is to stay open to the reality that there’s going to be a lot of trial and error. I didn’t have my parents around to assist me because they both died before our child was born. So I knew that I’d have to figure out a lot of things on my own. If you’re lucky enough to have parents, mentors, or someone with experience closeby who is willing to be there for you, then don’t take it for granted. Other than that, with all the stress that comes with parenting, my top tip would be to always lead with love.
UKJN: Best general travel/gigging/tour-with-child advice:
GK: If your spouse is a member of the band and you’re bringing your child with you on the road, get two hotel rooms! Then you and your partner can alternate who gets to sleep with the kid, while the other gets the night off (and potential for real sleep). Two artists = two hotel rooms in the contract. As tour budgets rarely allow for bringing a full-time nanny along, we mostly rely on local babysitters in each town, which we often find by researching childcare services online. But we have sometimes gotten results simply by asking local friends, musicians, or the promoter if they happen to know of anyone who babysits. Quite often somebody on the staff of the venue/festival/etc knows somebody who knows somebody. It really does take a village.
GM: Nurture the relationships and connections that you make while touring. Those presenters, venue owners, and other industry people that you meet are, more often than not, very understanding of parenthood if you let them see you as a parent. These are the people that are going to continue to help you find childcare, activities for your child, and make sure your child has a good time while you’re on the road.
UKJN: What is one way that figures or structures in the jazz industry could better support parents who are working jazz musicians?
GM: The more visible we allow ourselves to be as working musicians who have children, the better it is for our community, our audiences and the industry at large, to get used to seeing our many dimensions.
GK: For the most part, venues where we perform and schools where we teach are very understanding and supportive.
GM: Yes, it doesn’t seem to throw anybody off when they find out that we have whole lives outside of our performing personas.
UKJN: What has surprised you about becoming a parent and remaining engaged with your professional activities and ambitions?
GM: There were two big surprises for me. One is how much greater perspective I have on everything that I do professionally as well as personally. Our child is witness to what our lifestyle is like as musicians, and I’m hyper aware of how anything that we might do, say, create, record, or decide will be perceived and interpreted by him. Maybe it’s my way of considering younger audiences and future generations. But when I was younger, I never would have guessed that I would pay so much attention to that. The second thing that surprised me is how much more driven and committed I am. I think I initially fell prey to the stereotypes about women and half-expected that I might take more of a step back from my career after becoming a mom, but I had no desire to slow down. If anything, I have dug into things way deeper and become a better musician. I have no desire to hide or downplay the fact that I’m also a mother.
UKJN: What boundaries have you set for yourself as a parent in jazz (could be related to travel/touring, riders, personal parameters, child care decisions, etc.)?
GK: Gillian and I try as much as possible to only tour together (as a duo, or as co-bandleaders) during times when our child’s school is on break. When he was a baby or toddler, it was a little easier to just pick up and go on tour as a family any time. But once they’re in school, it’s important for them to have a routine and good attendance. There’s so much that a child can learn about the world by traveling, but I never wanted to be the kind of itinerant musician that dragged his kids around everywhere. Some of our musician friends with kids can leave them with family for a short time when they go on tour, but unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.
GM: Well, I’m going to refer back to the separate hotel rooms. I should qualify this by explaining that we’ve always done this – continued to uphold our professional relationship even after we became a couple. Many people assume we would have one room as a family, but we are two individual artists requiring our respective individual spaces to prepare for performance, which is really important.
Gillian and Geoffrey’s new album of duets, simply titled Gillian Margot & Geoffrey Keezer will be released on their label MarKeez Records on May 23, 2025.
(*) Parents in Jazz was started (first as ‘Mothers In Jazz’) by vocalist Nicky Schrire in August 2022. The initiative aims to create an online resource for working jazz musicians with children, those contemplating parenthood, and jazz industry figures who work with and hire musicians who are parents. The insight of the musicians interviewed for this series provides valuable emotional, philosophical and logistical information and support that is easily accessible to all. “Parents In Jazz” shines a light on the very specific role of being both a parent and a performing jazz musician.
