The Crooked Jades

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. Innovative, unpredictable and passionate, they bring their driving dance tunes and haunting ballads to rock clubs, festivals, traditional folk venues and concert halls across America and Europe.

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 current lineup of the Crooked Jades is a core trio of co-founders Jeff Kazor (vocals/guitar/ukulele) and Lisa Berman (vocals/slide guitar/banjo/harmonium), with Erik Pearson (vocals/banjos/ukulele/harmonium/slide guitar) often joined by Charlie Rose (bass), and Rose Sinclair (banjo/banjo uke/minstrel banjo/slide guitar).

Adjunct members of the collective include Leah Abramson (vocals/uke/guitar/harmonium), Megan Adie (bass), Jennie Benford (vocals/mandolin/guitar) Elise Engelberg (fiddle), Genessa Kealoha (bass), Tom Lucas (banjos), Stephanie Prausnitz (fiddle), Josh Rabie (fiddle/mandolin), Adam Tanner (fiddle/mandolin) and Sophie Vitells (fiddle/vocals).

Started by Kazor in San Francisco from a kitchen jam in 1994, The Crooked Jades have 6 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. Their brand new release “Shining Darkness” features the current lineup playing 19 original songs and instrumentals on harmonium, bao (Vietnamese one-string box zither) and mbira in symphony with string-band standards fiddle, banjo, guitar ukulele and arco bass.