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Jason Luckett
July 31st, 2010 — 8 - 10 pm

Jason Luckett is a singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. His sound is an organic mixture of passion and peace. Influenced by Bob Dylan, Curtis Mayfield, and The Smiths, Luckett’s sixth album, Adjusted Expectations, Vol. 1 (of 3), What is Reasonable?, was completed on August 1, 2006. A major feature on Jason is in the July-September issue of Save the Date magazine.

“I’ve called it ‘sweaty soul folk’, ‘organic pop’, ‘groovyacousticsoul’, a suburban progeny of Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell... Most accurately my sound is a mixture of folk and rock with a spiritual connection to jazz protest artists such as Nina Simone and Oscar Brown, Jr.”

Jason was born in Hawaii, with roots in Mississippi and Maine, but spent most of his childhood in Irvine, California. His father schooled him on jazz and soul beginning at the age of one and seven years later, Jason was writing songs on his first guitar.

After graduating from UCLA, and working in the A&R Departments of a few indie and major labels, Jason himself was scouted as an artist for EMI Music Publishing. He was then recruited as a baby artist into a management stable with the likes of Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, and Neil Diamond…yeah, he thinks it’s bizarre, too.

Jason’s music mixes views on love and politics with humor, personal insight, and left-field pop references in a quest for truth and grounding. Traveling through Europe listening to Gil Scott- Heron, reading Rilke and Orwell, and seeking paintings by Vermeer, Klimt, and Schiele shaped Jason into an passionate artist attracted to activist ideals.

Jason’s first album, the outgrowth of a stage play titled J Masala Griot, was composed in England. He brings stories from all stops, with residual suburban angst and a healthy dose of urban consciousness.

Adjusted Expectations, Vol. 1 is Jason’s sixth disc. Jason recorded more than 35 songs since the release of arrogance procrastination fear humility and decided to roll them out in different groupings of self-produced discs along with proposed “remix” albums working with artists from different genres including D Madden of Penal Colony among others.

AEV1 is the LA sequence. It includes the often downloaded track “Good Day in L.A.” on the most literal end. But tracks like “Dust” and “Highway One” recall classic Los Angeles literature. And the disc is filled with references to car culture, different LA neighborhoods, and the need to get out of LA
that we all feel here at times.

The sound is fairly sparse—mostly voice and acoustic guitar—with occasional multi-tracked harmonies, guitar orchestration and beat boxes. While writing all these new songs, Jason has toured the US and Europe regularly, in clubs, pubs and theaters, while also performing consistently at poetry venues as a featured artist and musician. His highlights of 2005 were two well received sets at 120,000 strong, Glastonbury Festival (UK). The 2005 edition of the festival included performers such as Coldplay, the White Stripes, Steve Earle, Bright Eyes, and Billy Bragg. He also composed the score for a short film, PNOK, featuring Danny Glover, Elle Fanning, Robert Ri’chard, and Irma P Hall. PNOK was a featured selection in the 2006 Nashville Film Festival.

In Jason’s free time he has worked with youth programs through the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) and Shakespeare Festival Los Angeles, mentoring teenagers in music and creating original music for theatrical outreach programs.

Jason is the Hawaiian born, California raised son of two psychotherapists introduced at a mental institution in 1960. The boldness of these interracial outlaw lovers* from Mississippi and Maine – and a bit of the crazy – has transferred nicely into the spirit of Jason’s art. His sound combines peace and passion, a bit of rock and folk, mixed with jazz and bossa nova. Imagine Curtis Mayfield crossed with Billy Bragg singing songs inspired by The Beatles, Joao Gilberto and Nina Simone.

In 2009 Jason released, mMix, his sixth full length CD; headlined at the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in Los Angeles; toured the US west on the Sing Out For Single Payer Road Show to promote healthcare reform with Labor Singer Anne Feeney, performing 35 concerts in 25 days; and had a new essay included in the ground breaking anthology, The Black Body, alongside such notables as Obama’s inaugural poet, Elizabeth Alexander and Saturday Night Live pioneer, writer Anne Beats, and edited by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, author of Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression. Despite the busy schedule, he also had time for a three-week trip to India where he collaborated in concert with South Indian classical musicians in Kerala.

Jason keeps an ongoing blog, TheObamanation.com, dedicated to a discussion of “Mulatto Moments in Post-Racial America.” His work has appeared in the poetry anthology, Voices from Leimert Park among other publications. He has composed the score for several films, including the 2005 short, “PNOK (Primary Next of Kin),” featuring Danny Glover. In 2004, he established Groovysoul Creative as an umbrella for his creative ventures include web and graphic design.

The epitome of the DIY artist, all of Jason’s creative ventures have sprung from a passion for music and social justice, honed as a street musician in Europe following graduation from a colorful four years at UCLA. He’s released six discs on his Lucky Masala Head label.

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Go to Jason Luckett's blog, TheObamanation.com

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