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Stories   >   'Russell Trunk's Exclusive Magazine' is enjoying the journey called 'Life' from Laird Jackson

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'Russell Trunk's Exclusive Magazine' is enjoying the journey called 'Life' from Laird Jackson

Posted: October 23, 2024

Laird Jackson is an Alternative Jazz vocalist and composer who has now produced 3 albums (since 1994) with notable acclaim and worked with numerous top-tier Jazz cats as a New York-based artist. From Cyrus Chestnut to Cecil Bridgewater and Marvin Sewell to Bruce Barth, she has played with some of the best. Her latest work, Life, is produced by Grammy® winner and percussionist extraordinaire Jeff Haynes and features many award winning musicians supporting her dreamy soulful vocals. Take a listen and enjoy the journey called Life!

"Laird Jackson is in possession of both a voice and a vision that brings to this delicate music, a balance of lightness and weight. Her sound, her approach, her perspective emanates from that place where poetic fragility and soulful determination stand side by side.

She has as well, assembled a coterie of musicians who with great sensitivity; dance, around, over, under and through the basic architecture of these songs and have imbued them with grace."  - James Browne -A former programmer for WBGO Newark, he has been involved in the NYC jazz scene for over 30 years including owning and managing the legendary Sweet Basil and Sweet Rhythm Jazz clubs. In addition to being a tireless lover and supporter of good music. He was also a co-producer on Laird Jackson's recording 'Touched'.

An original to the core, vocalist/composer Laird Jackson asserts that whenever you sing, you’re giving voice to your soul. She spreads her emotional soundscape wide. She dives deep into dramatic mystery, quiet romance, elemental wonder, profound sadness, ruminative ecstasy, improvisational beauty and the dreamy tug between longing within and pushing outward away from all boundaries to find freedom. As a teenager, Laird found solace in music. One night she slipped into a jazz club in Detroit and heard a woman singing with a trio. “I was mesmerized by her as she sang ‘Angel Eyes,’ and I thought that’s what I want to do,” Laird says. “Then I started to listen to the two jazz stations in Detroit WJZZ and WDET. I listened voraciously. That started to send me wandering. Music saved my life.”


Russell Trunk's Exclusive Magazine writes……For those unaware, Laird Jackson is an Alternative Jazz vocalist and composer who has now produced 3 albums (since 1994) with notable acclaim and worked with numerous top-tier Jazz cats as a New York-based artist. An original to the core, vocalist/composer Laird Jackson asserts that whenever you sing, you’re giving voice to your soul. She spreads her emotional soundscape wide. She dives deep into dramatic mystery, quiet romance, elemental wonder, profound sadness, ruminative ecstasy, improvisational beauty and the dreamy tug between longing within and pushing outward away from all boundaries to find freedom. From Cyrus Chestnut to Cecil Bridgewater and Marvin Sewell to Bruce Barth, she has played with some of the best. Her latest work, Life, is produced by Grammy® winner and percussionist extraordinaire Jeff Haynes and features many award winning musicians supporting her dreamy soulful vocals.

Tracks are:

1. I Believe
2. Suhaili
3. Dusk
4. Make a Smile for Me
5. Destiny
6. In the Pines
7. The River
8. Rainbows
9. Rounding the Sun
10. The Wind
11. Life
12. World of Dreams
13. Tender as a Rose
14. Wild Is the Wind
15. Follow
 

Taking a listen and enjoying the journey called Life, first up on this sumptuous new recording is the atmospheric I Believe, the languishing Suhaili and the all-embracing Dusk, and then we are brought forth the beautifully low slung ballad Make a Smile for Me, the impassioned Destiny, the affecting In the Pines, and the elegant The River.

Along next is a compelling ache that threads through Rainbows and the harmonica-driven Rounding the Sun, and they are in turn backed seamlessly by the inspiriting The Wind, the gently robust Life, the velvety gossamer of World of Dreams, the album rounding out on the guitar-edged Tender as a Rose, the airy, harmonically Wild Is the Wind, coming to a close on a glowing tenderness exuded within Follow.

SEE Russell Trunk's Exclusive Magazine