Jarrod Lawson

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Jarrod’s first memories were made exploring his own father’s recording studio in Redwood City, California—the family residence at the time. His parents still declare that it was never difficult to find young Jarrod; just follow the sound of humming or drumming. At two years of age, Jarrod had found his way to the drum-kit which created in him a highly rhythmic sensibility that can be witnessed in his keyboard playing to this day. His profound ability at bass support creates a rhythm section of his left hand alone. In a trio setting with guitar and drums, it was once remarked that the band needed no bass player as “a bassist would just get in Jarrod’s way.”

Oh yeah. Absolutely. I’ve already got three songs that I have been previewing to people on our last few tours that will be on the next album - ‘Soul Symphony,’ ‘Connected,’ and ‘Not Gonna Let Them’, three songs that I’ve been mixing into the set. It will be very soulful, it will be very jazzy also, but even a little bit more, whereas I think my debut album was maybe leaning slightly more to the jazz side, this one is going to be leaning slightly more to the soul side.Full Flava, led by UK producer/songwriter Rob Derbyshire, have over the past couple of years released a series of remixes of key songs from their 20-year history. Working with a stellar line-up of US and UK female vocalists - including CeCe Peniston, Chantay Savage, Carleen Anderson, Donna Gardier and Incognito’s Joy Rose - they cover a wide range of styles from disco to Latin, soulful house to soul-jazz. It has been. For me, I think the whole experience is so humbling because I never expected any of this. I didn’t record my album thinking this is going to stir up the world and change things… I hoped that it would do good things and that it would be an opportunity for me and be a launching pad for me to share what I do with the world but I never could have predicted the trajectory that I’ve been on now for the last year. It’s been incredible. I flew in from Chicago. We were doing a little US tour and we were right on the tail end of the tour when I got the call: ‘we’d really like to bring you to London for this award show,’ and I was like (laughs) okay, I’d better not go home then. So I literally flew straight from Chicago.

This October the phenomenon that is Jarrod Lawson arrives in Europe. With his brand of harmony laden and spiritually charged soul jazz he has taken the damage quality music world by storm. Jarrod’s ‘I Would Die 4 U’ feature accompaniment from Tyrone Hendrix (drums) and Chance Hayden (guitar), both fixtures of the live music scene in Portland, Oregon, where Jarrod lived for most of his life until deciding in late 2022 to relocate to Nashville in search of new musical challenges.Jarrod joined his college’s esteemed music program and sang in the Chamber Choir along with singing and playing piano for the college jazz ensemble. While honing his performance-craft, Jarrod continued developing his composition talents in melody, harmony, chord progressions and lyricism and much of that developed into the mature and steadfast compositions that we hear in Jarrod’s music now. The mature composition and performance heard now in Jarrod Lawson has made him wildly and widely popular in the Pacific Northwest—sharing stages with the likes of Bilal, Average White Band, Angelique Kidjo and Ronnie Laws. He has performed with Portland sensations like Farnell Newton, SoulMates and international star Liv Warfield who refers to Jarrod Lawson as “The Truth.” Maybe best of all for Jarrod, so far, was performing at Stevie Wonder’s birthday party. Jarrod Lawson, the singer-songwriter-keyboardist from Portland, Oregon who emerged seemingly out of nowhere at 37 with a debut album that took the jazz and soul world by storm, has completed recording of his long awaited second album. Described by the London Evening Standard as “the blue eyed soul boy of jazz”, Lawson followed his debut album with a limited edition vinyl EP “Jarrod Lawson At The BBC”, recorded at London’s historic BBC Maida Vale studios and broadcast on the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Show.

Says Anthony: Algebra and I really enjoy working together, both on stage and in the studio. We chose ‘Heaven’ for our first duet in a long while because it’s a feel good classic we grew up on”. He is accompanied by a band that benefits from the rhythmic presence of Grammy-nominated percussionist Sammy Figueroa, whose playing in a lengthy career has graced albums by artists as diverse as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Hall & Oates, Carole King and Chic. Formerly held close as one of the Pacific Northwest’s best-kept musical secrets, Jarrod Lawson has exploded as an international sensation, garnering awards, performing at prestigious venues and spawning fresh notability for Portland's burgeoning soul/jazz music scene. Ever since Lawson released his eponymous debut album in 2014, the smokey voiced singer-songwriter and virtuoso pianist has been sending positive ripples around the globe with his powerful message music. He has completed six successful international tours with prestigious highlights extending from Rotterdam’s North Sea Jazz and the UK’s Love Supreme festivals to Java Jazz festival in Indonesia, with performances in Beijing, Melbourne and at Tokyo’s Billboard Live. His very first overseas performance was at the world famous Ronnie Scott’s Club in London in 2014, following which the Jazzwise reviewer wrote: “With the deafening buzz surrounding this gig Lawson has to show and prove, and he does so and then some, pretty much from the downbeat” Among the other original recordings included are the Rahsaan Patterson-composed Want, a collaboration with UK vocalist Beverlei Brown on Could Be You, Taylor’s beautiful take on the Anita Baker classic Angel and his version of the Kenny Gamble-Bunny Sigler song Love, Need and Want You, first recorded in the Eighties by Patti Labelle. Formerly held close as one of the Pacific Northwest’s best-kept musical secrets, Jarrod Lawson has exploded as an international sensation, garnering awards, performing at prestigious venues and spawning fresh notability for Portland’s burgeoning soul/jazz music scene. Ever since Lawson released his eponymous debut album in 2014, the smokey voiced singer-songwriter and virtuoso pianist has been sending positive ripples around the globe with his powerful message music. He has completed six successful international tours with prestigious highlights extending from Rotterdam’s North Sea Jazz and the UK’s Love Supreme festivals to Java Jazz festival in Indonesia, with performances in Beijing, Melbourne and at Tokyo’s Billboard Live. His very first overseas performance was at the world famous Ronnie Scott’s Club in London in 2014, following which the Jazzwise reviewer wrote: “With the deafening buzz surrounding this gig Lawson has to show and prove, and he does so and then some, pretty much from the downbeat”Soul Artist of the Year Jarrod Lawson surprised guests at The Jazz FM Awards 2015 with a beautiful cover of ‘A Song For You’. It was 20 years ago that HIL ST SOUL released their groundbreaking debut album SOUL ORGANIC. The team of Zambian-born vocalist Hilary Mwelwa and producer Victor Redwood-Sawyerr (VRS) had been working away in a North London studio creating a unique blend of neo soul, jazz and R&B that impressed critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

During my 40 plus years of being an appreciative music collector I can only recall a handful of lp’s that have touched Review me so emphatically on first listen and continued to do so on subsequent listens. From the opening syncopated beats of ‘Music & Its Magical Way’, where Jarrod entreats us “welcome”, to the luscious closing flute, synth motif of ‘Gotta Keep’ you know you have been on a beautiful journey. A journey filled with harmonies so all embracing you nach have to catch yourself to stay rooted Tongue to the floor (‘All That Surrounds’ and ‘He’s There’ need special mention in that respect). He is also master of the jazz keyboard as is displayed so deftly in the soul/ latin jazz mash up of ‘Think About Why’. ‘Needed’ can only be described as a soul classic with it’s impressive arrangement and Jarrods sweet as cheap nba jerseys honey falsetto vocals. For the first time in 10 years Atlanta vocalists Anthony David and Algebra Blessett come together for an emotionally charged performance of the 1988 BeBe and CeCe Winans #1 Gospel and R&B hit “Heaven”. Their acoustic version of the song – which has received praise from BeBe Winans himself - has now become a Billboard Top 10 Gospel hit, with airplay on more than 100 Gospel and Adult R&B radio stations across the US. The song opens this first ever collection of many of Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Anthony’s finest songs, which also includes “4Evermore”, a Top 20 Billboard R&B hit with Algebra from 2011, and his very first Billboard R&B hit, “Words”, on which he is joined by India Arie. Following the success of that single he received warm acclaim from Michelle Obama and President Obama, who both said he was one of their favorite artists. The venues will provide all the details. And remember that is his first ever solo tour, just Jarrod and a grand piano at intimate venues. We believe that the four London performances are already sold out. Good news for the many fans of JARROD LAWSON in particular and lovers of classy, jazz-flavoured soul in general… the now Nashville-based singer/songwriter is releasing some new music and going out on the road!I think so. The US has its markets - Atlanta, New York - for this type of music but when I’ve come over here I’ve gotten a great reception, everywhere I go - and it’s not just the UK, it’s all over Europe. Sometime around the age of eight years old, the Lawson family moved to a farmstead south of Portland, Oregon. In that open vista—away from neighbors and city distractions—Jarrod explored his father’s record collection and found treasure in the recordings of Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. These two giants would inspire and inform Jarrod’s own development as a singer and songwriter of soul music. As he explored the magnificent harmonies of soul, a fascination and near-obsession with the piano blossomed when Jarrod was only 13 years old. How does it compare with the USA, then? Is it harder to make an impact there because it’s so large? http://www.soulandjazzandfunk.com/interviews/3435-jazz-fm-award-winner-jarrod-lawson-talks-exclusively-to-sjf.html