Event

Crooked Jades

Playhouse Arts and Humboldt Folklife Society present The Crooked Jades!

Their brand new release "Bright Land" is a unprecedented collaboration with acclaimed New York-based choreographer Kate Weare. From this unlikely meeting of the ancient and the modern has sparked a bold and cinematic soundtrack of 20 songs and instrumentals on harmonium, mellotron, body percussion in symphony with string-band standards: fiddle, banjo, guitar, slide, ukulele and arco bass.

The Crooked Jades are on a mission to reinvent old-world music for a modern age, pushing boundaries and blurring categories with their fiery, soulful performances. Known for their rare and obscure repertoire, beautiful original compositions, inspired arrangements and eclectic, often vintage instrumentation, The Crooked Jades began with band leader/founder Jeff Kazor's vision to revive the dark and hypnotic sounds of pre-radio music. With this old-time foundation, the band has created the unique Crooked Jades sound by exploring the roots of Americana and interweaving the diverse musical influences of Europe and Africa. Filtering these old-world sounds with universal and ancient themes through a post-9/11 lens, they seek to make sense of the future.

A collective of West and East Coast pickers with equal parts attitude and respect, always led by Kazor, the band performs with a thrilling energy that has audiences on their feet dancing and critics comparing them to everyone from The New Lost City Ramblers and The Pogues to Gillian Welch, Nick Cave and Tom Waits. The Crooked Jades have seven critically-acclaimed CDs, including "World's on Fire" (on the sound track for Sean Penn's 2007 film "Into the Wild"), two CDs co-produced by alt-country's Richard Buckner, and "Seven Sisters" the soundtrack to an award-winning PBS documentary.