It had been this way since the dawn of jazz, when American artists like Charlie Parker would travel to the UK to perform, only to stay in Europe where they felt much more appreciated than back home. The success he found performing alongside one of the most popular female artists of the 1980s - while producing the most commercially successful albums of his career - allowed the musician to cross over for a short time onto the more mainstream adult contemporary charts.Īt this point in his life Butler was living in the United Kingdom, where, unlike in America, he enjoyed a large following. Butler toured on the strength of his breakthrough album, More Than Friends, which featured the Grammy-nominated hit “Lies,” and opened at huge venues for Whitney Houston. Just Brooklyn alone was bigger than Cape Town, my hometown,” he recalls. The veteran performer remembers his first tour of the United States with a wistful sigh. I want them to experience it with a more worldly view instead of just viewing it as coming from a jazz artist.” We speak 11 languages, our music has very rich sounds and rhythms and melodies, and incorporating that within jazz and gospel is what is unique with how I view music and the way hear it and experience it and the way I want my fans to experience it. “Music is wider than just the sun, and because of my culture in South Africa, it influences my view of music. I don’t just live in the world of jazz, I live in the world of music, and that is the world I choose to live in,” Butler explains. In fact, the South African expatriate is considered a forerunner in bringing world music influences into the jazz genre, a status that the artist doesn’t shy away from. As Butler blends new world influences with gospel, his silky stylings at once remind the listener of the soundtrack to a chic hotel lobby and a Sunday morning worship service. Butler’s laid-back jazz-tinged approach to R&B sounds has brought him accolades across the decades from smooth jazz afficionados. Charleston’s own trumpet player Charlton Singleton, sax players Gerald Albright and BK Jackson, and composer and bassist Marcus Miller will all perform, but perhaps no name shines as bright as singer and guitarist Jonathan Butler. The 7th Annual Greater Charleston Lowcountry Jazz Festival will be filling the night air of the Holy City once again this year with a lineup of international jazz superstars.
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