Lewis Harrison - London-based soulful jazz pianist, vocalist & composer

My style of jazz has a nostalgic yet contemporary sound – perhaps timeless...  It is accessible but often intricate, harmonically and rhythmically and the melodies and textures I create can be subtle or deep as well as beautiful or tuneful. The production is minimal: solo piano – acoustic or electric – is almost the entire arrangement. Simple hip-hop-style beats often frame the piano, and sometimes, I sing in a soulful way too. But the piano is the chief storyteller.

I like to "speak" in the language of music directly. And the more live and unedited, the better. Even in recordings, I don't use technology to perfect things. I enjoy being a real, embodied, human musician, communicating music with immediacy, avoiding contriving doing anything for pure effect, just expressing feeling with spontaneity and flow.

In my youth, the competitive world of classical piano didn't really feel like a good fit for me, although I still enjoy making and sharing classical(-ish) music, using my birth name, Phil Best. For a long time, my soulful jazz style was really just a private happy rebellion. I decided to share it publicly as something of a tribute to my wonderful Grandma, Louise Harrison. She was the one person in my childhood who could really connect with me and she always encouraged my love of music as something healing and deep. The love we shared for each other and for music is the foundation of this project, which is all about music experienced less as an external object and more as a language of inner feeling that we all understand and benefit from.