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Stories   >   Laird Jacksons 'LIFE' makes 'danouellette.net: Top Recordings of 2024'

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Laird Jacksons 'LIFE' makes 'danouellette.net: Top Recordings of 2024'

Posted: November 19, 2024

Alternative Jazz vocalist/composer Laird Jackson’s latest release features a spectacular list of award-winning musicians - LIFE. An original to the core, Laird 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.

With 15 tracks (only 5 of which are covers) taking the listener on a 74 minute genre-bending journey through a cinematic sonic landscape, Life paints a colorful image that is cohesively held together by Laird’s beautiful voice. Produced by Grammy® winner and percussionist extraordinaire, Jeff Haynes (Pat Metheny, Cassandra Wilson, Brandi Carlile) this new album will tingle your senses.

Featuring Jeff Haynes (percussion), Marvin Sewell (guitar), Gregoire Maret (harmonica), Michael Manring (bass), Charlie Burnham (violin), Premik Russell Tubbs (sax/EWI), Brandon Ross (guitar), Eugene Friesen (cello), Jennifer DeFrayne (piano), Sean Harkness (guitar/bass), Doug Weiss (bass), Candace Coates (harp), and more.


Laird Jackson’s 'LIFE' makes 'danouellette.net: Top Recordings of 2024'

danouellette.net: JAZZ & BEYOND INTEL: The Bounty of 2024’s Best - Dan Ouellette writes…..A poignant word here about the role of music in this damned and doomful world we are now living in beneath the shadow of the evil anarchist who will wreak havoc on our culture. Music can heal in its most basic essence; but as witnessed in the late ‘60s, music can also help to wake up the millions of people who could not bother to see and hear what was to come. So, now that will be the artistry of music—to arouse us with its beauty and its compelling vibe to become aware and loving.

It has been a grueling life under the red-devil sway of heir Donald L. Trump for way too long. I pray for justice. And I celebrate the music that made 2024 a little better and healthier.

The following is my top 10 (actually 11) best recordings this year with brief reflections….written about in Intel as well as a couple features for DownBeat—including my portrait of Lizz Wright which is printed in its entirety at the end of this column.

In my liner notes to singer/composer Laird Jackson’s 2002 album Touched, she told me: “Jazz is about freedom and self-expression and experimentation. We all learn from and emulate the masters, but we need to find our own reality and create from that with all the risk that entails.” After a two-decade hiatus from producing her own albums, Laird returns with her captivating, freedom-avowing  Life, where she asserts that whenever you sing, you’re giving voice to your soul. An original to the core, Laird dives deep on Lifeinto 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. Laird reveals herself to be unique in her ability to write compelling, metaphor-rich poetry and marry it to sumptuous melodies.

Laird doesn’t apologize about her hiatus. “Life happened,” says the Cleveland-born, Detroit-bred, New York based artist. “I didn’t stop living. I traveled, I wrote, I recorded on other people’s projects. I stepped back from the business side to deal with the unexpected twists and turns that happened, the things that you literally could not have written. I have definitely lived through some trying times, but I am certainly not unique in this regard. The idea behind my simple song ‘Rainbows’ is that beyond clouds there is sometimes a rainbow. This realization takes some time to recognize.”

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