2024 Spring Concert
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Held on May 21, 2024 | City Winery | NYC
A massive part of voter engagement is meeting people where they are and listening to issues that are most important to them. Black Voters Matter (BVM) understands this better than anyone. At Soul of Justice, we met and supported BVM’s founders while promoting justice through the joy of music.
The concert featured powerful, soulful music from the late 60s and 70s, including songs from Stevie Wonder, Isley Brothers, Staple Singers, Roberta Flack, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and others. Tickets included a welcome reception and a 3-course dinner.
MEET THE ARTISTS!
LISA FISCHER
After four decades of featured background singing with icons like Luther Vandross, The Rolling Stones, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, and Nine Inch Nails, Lisa Fischer set out to take center stage with her own humble, heartfelt song.
The 2013 Best Documentary Oscar-winning film “Twenty Feet from Stardom” altered the course of Lisa’s musical journey, telling her story, with clips of her legendary duets with Sting or with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter,” left audiences eager to see and hear more.
Lisa set out on her own, reinventing classic songs with her co-conspirators JC Maillard and Grand Baton.
While Lisa’s range is legendary, her greatest gift is the ability to connect, to reach the hearts of her listeners. Raised in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she emerged from New York’s fervent studio scene in the early 1980s, sang for two decades with legendary vocalist Luther Vandross, and released “So Intense”, earning her first Best R&B Performance Grammy with “How Can I Ease The Pain”. She joined the Rolling Stones for their 1989 Steel Wheels tour, and continued to grace their stage for the next 26 years.
Her passion for constant growth and experimentation has led to recent collaborations with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Michael McDonald, YoYo Ma, Anna Deavere Smith, the Seattle Symphony, the National Philharmonic, and others.
COREY GLOVER
American singer, guitarist, and actor Corey Glover is most famous as the frontman of the Grammy Award-winning rock band, Living Colour, but he is also a once-in-a-lifetime multi-disciplinary artist. He seemingly does it all, from music to acting and dabbling in everything in between.
He has teamed up with the funk band Galactic and the rock group Ultraphoni. More recently he formed a metal project called Disciples of Verity, whose album Pragmatic Sanction was released in 2020.
As an actor, Glover played Francis in the 1986 war movie Platoon, starred in a short-lived television series called Signs of Life, and co-headlined a national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. He sang “Superstar” at the 29th Kennedy Center Honors.
JARROD LAWSON
Formerly held close as one of the Pacific Northwest’s best-kept musical secrets, Jarrod Lawson has exploded as an international sensation, garnering awards, performing at prestigious venues and spawning fresh notability for Portland’s burgeoning soul/jazz music scene.
He has completed seven international tours with prestigious highlights extending from Rotterdam’s North Sea Jazz and the UK’s Love Supreme festivals to Java Jazz festival in Indonesia, with performances in Beijing, Melbourne and at Tokyo’s Billboard Live. In March of 2023, he set out on an exhaustive 10-show solo UK tour, ‘One Man & His Piano’, delivering his most intimate and stirring performances to date, for sold-out crowds all across the UK.
Lawson won ‘Soul Artist Of The Year’ at the Jazz FM Awards and has been dubbed “the hottest talent to hit soul music in at least ten years” by Echoes magazine. In the US, he has performed on the Capital Jazz Cruise and has appeared in leading jazz clubs across the country from Atlanta to Seattle.
TASH NEAL
A founding member of rock duo The London Souls, Tash Neal has toured extensively in the US and internationally supporting some of the biggest names in rock from The Who, Slash, Gary Clark Jr., The Black Crowes, Tedeschi Trucks, and Lenny Kravitz to name a few. A guitar player, singer, and songwriter based in Harlem, Neal just released “Charge It To The Game,” his first solo project, and is playing live shows with brothers Matt, Dave, and JoJo Godfrey.
PAINE THE POET
Paine The Poet was raised in Columbus, Ohio, and currently resides in Virginia. While serving an 8-year sentence within the Virginia Department of Corrections, he began to use poetry as a method of healing and connecting with others who have suffered similar trauma. His work attracted the attention of the institution and soon he was developing programs for the community. Upon his release from prison, Paine traveled the open mic circuit which would set the foundation for his career as a spoken word artist, activist, public speaker, and entertainer.
Using his gift of poetry, Paine articulates distinctly emotional experiences in the criminal system through crisis intervention and youth mentoring.Paine has taught various workshops and after-school programs and participated in panel discussions and fundraisers on mass incarceration, prison reform, social justice, disenfranchisement, and education. He has performed at the U.S. Capital and the 2018 NFL Honors Awards. His acting credits include the role of Jahlal Mahad in the 2021 film, American Skin. In 2021 Paine wrote the opening for the ONLY airing of TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year ceremony awarding Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Paine released his first musical project in 2022.
CHRISSI POLAND
Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Chrissi Poland weaves together the sounds of soul, blues, jazz, and pop to create a uniqueness that has elevated her as an artist and linked her with some of the best in the business. A vocalist with a diverse stylistic range, Chrissi has drawn comparisons from Aretha Franklin to Adele, Joni Mitchell to Prince
A touring member of Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame legend Sam Moore’s band (Sam & Dave) from 2008-2012, Poland also appeared with Bette Midler as an official “Harlette” for Bette’s 2014 album release promo tour of “It’s The Girls.”Her original songs have appeared on the HBO, NBC, Bravo networks, and Netflix.
Chrissi has toured with and opened for a wide range of artists, including Blood, Sweat & Tears, Marc Cohn, and Suzanne Vega. She currently splits her time between touring with GRAMMY- winning soul singer Michael Bolton as his duet partner and writing/recording/producing from her home studio. With four solo albums, three EP’s, and a slew of singles released, Poland continues to release new music this year.
MARTHA REDBONE
Martha Redbone is a vocalist/songwriter/composer/educator, known for her unique gumbo of folk, blues, and gospel from her childhood in Harlan County, Kentucky infused with the eclectic grit of pre-gentrified Brooklyn.
Inheriting her powerful gospel-singing father’s voice and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Southeastern Indigenous culture, Redbone broadens the boundaries of American Roots music with songs and storytelling that share her life experience as a Black and Native American woman and mother navigating in the new millennium. Martha also works in partnership with longtime collaborator/husband Aaron Whitby. Their works give voice to issues of social justice, connecting cultures and celebrating the human spirit.
Her album The Garden of Love: Songs of William Blake is “a brilliant collision of cultures” (New Yorker). Redbone and Whitby are the composers, arrangers, and orchestrators of original music and score for the 2022 Broadway revival of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuff, the 1976 classic choreopoem by the late Ntozake Shange, garnering seven Tony Award nominations and critical acclaim. Redbone and Whitby are the 2020 Drama Desk Award recipients for Outstanding Music in a Play and the 2020 Audelco Award recipient for Outstanding Composer of Original Music and Score for the Off-Broadway revival. Redbone is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow.
Martha guest lectures on subjects ranging from Indigenous rights to the role of the arts in politics and Native American Identity at many institutions including New York University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to name a few.
The couple’s recent work is Bone Hill, an interdisciplinary musical theater work inspired by the lives of Redbone’s family in Appalachia. The concert, commissioned by Joe’s Pub/NEA and Lincoln Center for the Arts, is touring nationwide.
NICKI RICHARDS
Nicki Richards wears many hats in the music business as an A-list touring, recording, television, and performing vocalist, as a producer and arranger, and as a solo artist with several albums under her belt.
She has recorded and/or performed with top artists such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, Steely Dan, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, Rob Thomas, Chaka Khan, Brandon Victor Dixon, Jimmy Cliff, Chris Botti, Ray LaMontagne, Sara Bareilles, Chromeo, The Goo Goo Dolls, Florence + The Machine (to name a few).
Richards is also an artist, producer, and arranger with several albums under her belt. Her work spans genres and languages in pop, dance, jazz, and rock; the list goes on and on.
She is currently an adjunct instructor at NYU Tisch and a member of the jazz faculty at the New School College of Performing Arts.
SCOTT SHARRARD
Scott Sharrard is a Grammy-nominated guitarist/singer and songwriter widely known as the lead guitarist and musical director of the Gregg Allman Band. A prolific songwriter and talented singer, he has also released several soul-influenced albums of his own including three with his first band, The Chesterfields, followed by three solo albums and, including the eponymous release, Scott Sharrard & the Brickyard Band.
In 2020, Sharrard was announced as a new member of the legendary Rock and Roll band, Little Feat on guitar and leads vocals.
A Michigan native, Sharrard began his musical career studying jazz in high school and earning his stripes by playing and singing with local and visiting leading musicians. He moved to New York City and eventually garnered critical praise for his live shows and studio recordings in New York City and with The Band drummer Levon Helm in the Hudson Valley area.
Sharrard is a passionate educator of all styles of American Roots Music. Through online courses and private lessons, he has been hard at work finding new ways to connect with fans of guitar playing, singing, and songwriting all over the world.
RYAN SHAW
Ryan Shaw is a three-time GRAMMY-nominated artist. He has shared the world stage with Van Halen, Bonnie Raitt, John Legend, B.B. King, and Jill Scott. His music has been featured on FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance, ABC’s Dancing with The Stars, Grey’s Anatomy, and the films My Blueberry Nights, Bride Wars, and the Sex and the City soundtrack.
Ryan’s theater credits include starring as Judas in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar, as the original Stevie Wonder in Motown: The Musical on Broadway, and on London’s West End as the Soul of Michael Jackson in Thriller Live. His Carnegie Hall appearances include Elton John and a Nat King Cole 100th concert with the NY Pops. His concert schedule includes Nat King Cole at 100 at The Kennedy Center and A Tribute to the Queen of Soul: Aretha Franklin with numerous orchestras throughout North America.
Ryan’s new album, Imagining Marvin, showcases Marvin Gaye hits alongside Ryan’s original songs.
NICOLE ZURAITIS
Nicole Zuraitis is a Grammy-winning and 2X Grammy-nominated jazz singer-songwriter, pianist and arranger, New York-based bandleader, and winner of the prestigious 2021 American Traditions Vocal Competition Gold Medal. With a “heart as big as her remarkable voice,” (Jazz Police), Nicole has positioned herself as one of the top artists and “prolific songwriters” (Broadway World) to watch in jazz and beyond.
As a recording artist, Nicole has released five albums as leader, and her sixth album, How Love Begins, co-produced with eight-time GRAMMY-winner Christian McBride, won BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM at the 2024 GRAMMY® awards and features all original music.
Besides leading her quartet, Nicole is the premier vocalist for the Birdland Big Band and frequently headlines iconic NYC jazz clubs like Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Blue Note, the Carlyle, 54 Below, and the late, great 55 Bar. She has appeared as a featured soloist with the Savannah Philharmonic, Asheville Symphony and Macon Pops and has supported iconic singers like Melanie, Morgan James, Darren Criss, and Livingston Taylor on piano and vocals.
Nicole’s arrangement of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, co-written with renowned drummer and bandleader Dan Pugach, was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY®, spring boarding her career and making her a household name in the modern-day jazz landscape. In 2020, she was named in the top 40 under 40 for 2020 in Connecticut Magazine, and her weekly live stream during the Covid-19 crisis, “Virtual Piano Lounge,” was featured in Forbes Magazine.
Nicole has collaborated with an extensive list of luminaries, including Christian McBride, David Cook, Gilad Hekselman, Veronica Swift, Benny Benack, Stephen Feifke, Cyrille Aimee, Antonio Sanchez, Dave Stryker, Omar Hakim, Rachel Z, Helen Sung, and Bernard Purdie. She is a proud educator and currently vocal faculty at NYU, SUNY Purchase and the Litchfield Jazz Camp.
An ardent activist with a decade-long track record of giving back, her album release coincided with a self-produced music festival and day of activism for Save the Sound.Org.
AN ALL-STAR BAND
ABOUT OUR GRANTEE PARTNER, BLACK VOTERS MATTER
In 2023 and 2024, JusticeAid selected Black Voters Matter (BVM) as our grantee partner.
BVM’s work is guided by these 5 core beliefs: understanding, respecting and supporting local infrastructure; supporting individuals and organizations that are striving to obtain social justice 365 days a year; reaching out to rural counties and smaller cities/towns that are often ignored by candidates, elected officials, political parties, and the media; using authentic messaging; and recognizing the leadership, talent, and commitment demonstrated by Black women in particular, and investing in them so that they can flourish and multiply.
100% of your contributions through the end of October 2024 will support Black Voters Matter.
