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It’s changed a lot. It’s been a year of growth for me in a lot of ways, as you’d expect when a person goes from tuning pianos every day to suddenly touring all over the world and getting to share my gift all over the world.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” 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.

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. The label has been blessed to work with so many talented artists from the US and UK in its quest to deliver the finest in soul, R&B and dance music, and many of its newer followers from around the world are only now beginning to discover just how many gems there are in the Dome catalogue. This compilation will help that process of discovery, and there are many more great artists to be featured in Volume 2. I first came across Jarrod when he appeared as a guest vocalist on Jarrod acclaimed trumpet player Farnell Newtons 2011 lp ‘Class Is Now In Session’. Then in the autumn of 2013 Farnell, who is one of the mainstay brass section members for Prince and Jill Scott, posted a link to a sampler for Jarrods lp. A limited pressing was hastily snapped up by an appreciative fanbase and the rest as they say is now history. cheap nfl jerseys California born Jarrod is now based in Portland, Oregon and along with Farnell is deeply involved with the cities burgeoning soul/ jazz scene. His first exposure to music came as a child at his fathers recording studio he then further developed the joint skills of lyric and melody writing whilst at college. Soul Artist of the Year Jarrod Lawson surprised guests at The Jazz FM Awards 2015 with a beautiful cover of ‘A Song For You’. 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.

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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” I think for this album I’ll probably produce myself again. For the third album I’ve toyed with the idea - not because I have to, just because it will be fun - of maybe reaching out to somebody like, say Omar, just because I think the result could be really special.

Jarrod is Blessed with a voice steeped in reverence for the great soul singers that have gone before him. Yet he brings a fresh unique approach and sound of all his own. Jarrod expresses this in his innovative arrangements and original compositions as well.

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Hearing the song Universal Chord from Jarrod Lawson’s new album Be the Change had much the same effect as Take 6 did all those years ago, and it’s just as good, if not better.

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. After setting the soul scene alight - especially in the UK - in the early 2000s, New Jersey vocalist Dennis Taylor is being discovered, and re-discovered, by a growing audience around the world in 2022, thanks in large part to a series of new remixes. 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. Timing is everything in music, but launching an album in the midst of a global pandemic was not ideal for singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jarrod Lawson. As he prepares to embark on a European tour, he will finally get the chance to feature the music from his second album Be the Change in front of live audiences. 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.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. It’s a huge honour. For me to see my face on this little marquee right here next to D’Angelo and Lalah Hathaway, it feels like I’m living somebody else’s life (laughs)…