The highly-respected musician played with many of jazz’s biggest names, such as Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner and Miles Davis, as well as record solo discs for the legendary Prestige imprint.

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Azar Lawrence may not be a household name, but he has a full resume to rely on. As revealed through this exclusive Udiscover Music interview and live photographs taken at the Grammy Museum, the respected Los Angeles-based jazz saxophonist has played with several of the biggest names of his kind, including Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Miles Davis, and forged a remarkable career in the mid-1970s.

Having grown up in Los Angeles in the early 1960s, Lawrence grew up in a neighbourhood where jazz greats such as Earl Palmer and Louis Jordan were near neighbours and he found a way into the wonders of jazz after befriending Reggie Golson, son of another legendary jazz saxophonist, Benny Golson.

“Reggie lived in the Hollywood hills, beyond Davy Jones of the Monkees, and he had this record collection,” enthuses Lawrence, speaking about his early influences in the Udiscover music interview that you can read in full below. Training

“That’s how I discovered Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, John Coltrane and many others. Listening to [Coltrane’s] A Love Supreme was simply an experience of reappraisal. Just the way the horn sounded, Array. . . It was as if they were talking to me personally.

A graduate of Horace Tapscott’s Arkestra Pueblo Panfrica, with whom he played as a teenager, Lawrence went on to record 3 albums in as many years for Bob Weinstock’s prestigious jazz label. It was an excursion in Europe with pianist McCoy Tyner in 1974 that manufacturer Orrin Keepnews presented him with the possibility of recording as a leader. The owner of Milestone’s label, KeepNews, was in Montreux, Switzerland, to the movies in the Tyner Quartet at the notable Lakeside Town Jazz Festival.

“I did the Enlightenment album there with McCoy and that’s when Orrin Keepnews heard me for the first time,” he previously told uDiscanopy Music. “Inside the album cover is a photo of McCoy on the lake and it was taken on a yacht cruise organized through the record company. They invited me to go and during that trip, Orrin Keepnews asked me if I would be interested in signing with Prestige.

Azar Lawrence’s first solo album, Bridge to the New Age, went unnoticed at the time but has since been hailed as an early example of post-John Coltrane spiritual jazz and has been cited as a precursor to the new jazz sensation. Jazz Kamasi Washington. existing attempt.

Bridge Into The New Age was reissued on vinyl by Craft Recordings in 2017 and the label also recently afforded Lawrence’s seminal 1975 release, Summer Solstice the 180-g vinyl treatment, with its new edition an all-analogue mastering from the original tapes. This spiritual free jazz album remains one of the highlights of Azar Lawrence’s career and he is one of very few artists from the legendary Prestige Recordings era who is still touring and putting out new music.

“My roots as far as the stuff I wrote in the 1970s, such as Bridge Into The New Age and Summer Solstice – all the rhythms basically came from Africa”, he reveals in this interview. “So what we consider funk and all of that mixed together is the Azar Lawrence Experience!”

Listen to Azar Lawrence’s on Apple Music and Spotify.