Chad Lawson - You Finally Knew (Endel Sleep Soundscape) (2024) Hi-Res

Pianist and composer Chad Lawson's performing career has visited the byways of various musical genres, and through it all, his own musical voice has evolved into an intimate, expressive one that has seen him topping streaming and sales charts in the 2010s and placing it in several TV shows and commercial projects. At the start of 2020, Lawson founded his own original podcast, Calm It Down, then signed with the Decca label to release the full-length You Finally Knew. His success continued in 2022 with the double-album Breathe.

As a five-year-old kid, Lawson wanted music lessons after seeing Sha Na Na on TV. As is typical, those lessons turned out to involve classically oriented piano. When it came time to go to college, he applied to the Peabody Conservatory, but decided to focus on jazz and attended Berklee College of Music instead, where he also picked up studio keyboard gigs. After graduation, he ended up touring with Babik Reinhardt, and then formed his own jazz trio with Zack Page on bass and Al Sergel on drums. The Trio's self-titled debut album was released in 1997, followed by two more on the Summit label -- Dear Dorothy: The Oz Sessions (2002) and Unforeseen (2004) -- which did well on jazz charts. Dear Dorothy led to Lawson's music being used on the TV show Dawson's Creek and in Starbucks' stores, and to his scoring Doughboys (Louis Lombardi, 2007). Lawson and the trio then took a break while he toured as keyboardist with Julio Iglesias in 2007.

William Ackerman, Windham Hill's founder, had taken an interest in Lawson's music, and helped launch his first solo album, Set on a Hill, in 2009. It marked a new direction for Lawson's career as five more solo projects appeared between 2011 and 2014, each earning editorial recognition.

Lawson's solo work has a relaxed, meditative feel that draws on both the sonorities of classical music and the freeform nature of jazz improv. The feel of his music became even more intimate with The Space Between (2013), where he altered the sound of the piano by placing extra felt between the hammers and strings and putting the microphone close to the hammers. He used those same modifications in 2014 for his chart-topping The Chopin Variations, based on the Romantic composer's melodies, which also featured violinist Judy Kang and cellist Rubin Kodheli. This was followed by the solo album Bach Interpreted in 2016, and scores for the podcast and Amazon TV series Lore, a confirmation of what was already recognized by producers for The Walking Dead and Viceland, and by ad agencies for Chevrolet, IBM, and others: his music easily helped set the tone for their projects. In 2018, Lawson self-released re:Piano, this time processing the sound of his piano through tools available on an iPad, just as he does when live looping in concert, and again topping streaming and sales lists. Lawson's scores for the first two seasons of the original podcast Unobscured saw release in 2019 and in 2020, he launched his own independent podcast, Calm It Down. That same year, the Stay EP and full-length You Finally Knew marked his first two outings for Decca Records. With the support of a major label behind him, Lawson's output remained steady over the next couple of years with the release of a holiday EP, various singles, compilations, and the 2022 double-album Breathe. Like his previous effort, Breathe was recorded at London's Abbey Road Studio and featured collaborations with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as well as violinist Esther Yoo and cellist Peter Gregson. ~ Patsy Morita