full sound and huge energy
Justin Lavash is a musician who has taken blues, folk and jazz styles and fused them to create something truly original and driving. His solo tours of the last two years have put him in venues large and small all over the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Britain to great acclaim. Critics have praised him highly for his mastery of the guitar and powerful, soulful voice, but it is his songwriting which seems to speak to people the most. His compositions both embrace tradition and reinvent it. These are songs which can grow from a whisper to a howl and grab your attention with their pulsing rhythms and infectious melodies.
His concerts are mostly solo because, as one critic recently observed, he is an orchestra. He commands the guitar with breathtaking skill and has a voice to match. This is an act which is as much at home on a big club stage as it is in an intimate venue.
It takes a while to achieve this level of musicianship and JL has been playing professionally for twenty years. His early work on London's jazz scene in the nineties helped him develop his own brand of fingerstyle and slide guitar which so impresses audiences today.
He later worked as a session and studio player in Britain and America, working with established session men, honing his skills as a musician and also gaining a name as a freelance transcriber and arranger. Exposure to many different styles of music gave him a unique opportunity to experiment with genre and harmony in his own compositions.
His songwriting shows many influences but the folk and blues shine out, probably due to his early exposure to these styles from his American father and Irish mother. Regular visits to France introduced him to chanson francaise, giving his own compositions lyrical depth and insight. No pastiche bluesman, but rather a true original, whose first two CDs, Harder and Harder (2007) and Fits and Starts (2008) have already sold more than 2000 copies at concerts alone.
