This is the old bio. The new one will be up soon.
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: What is Reasonable?, was completed on August 1, 2006. A major feature on Jason appeared in the July-September ’06 issue of Save the Date magazine. (Click title to open a PDF of the article.)
“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 Shiele 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 is Jason’s sixth disc.
AE is an 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.
Discography
on LUCKY MASALA HEAD:
mMix (2009), March 2009
Andjusted Expectations, August 2006
Arrogance Procrastination Fear Humility, 2002
Living Room, 2000
Distil, 1997
Suicide or Celebration?, 1996
on 21 GRIOTS:
J Masala Griot, 1993
Music for Film/TV:
Honda Motorcycles
A-List, UCLA
Word a spoken word anthology film by Rico Martinez
Cool Blue
Music for Theater:
Horizon Line (NCCJ)
Kick (NCCJ)
Read Sea Poetry (Hudson Theater)
Walking in Your Footsteps (Zero One)
Streaming tracks available on jasonluckett.com, allmusic.com, itunes, cdbaby.com, msnmusic, myspace, last.fm, and more.
LISTEN TO Second Half of the Bet (pop-up)