Ezra Lipp is the rare artist that straddles the line within multiple musical worlds and can equally excel as a supportive team player as well as leading the musical charge. As a songwriter/singer/bandleader, he shines as a dynamic and charismatic “frontman” (still mostly positioned behind the drums). What Ezra brings to the stage is his heart, wit, warmth, honesty and humor, along with a prolific and ever growing catalog of memorable songs.
As a drummer, he is an accomplished player, having contributed performances to many records as well as having extensively toured and performed around the world. His playing emits a groovy soulful feel drawing from a rhythmic vocabulary steeped in classic rock, jazz, as well as a variety of world music, which fuses seamlessly with his improvisational fearlessness and fierce dedication to the present musical moment.
Since 2018 he has been touring as a member of the beloved Jam-Rock quartet ALO, and has also performed with a diverse roster of musicians including The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh & Bob Weir, modern day legends like Lukas Nelson & Melvin Seals, Folk-Soul hero Sean Hayes, and an expansive list of other notable contemporary bands and artists. From 2017-2020 he led his own power-packed trio Magic In The Other, and within a few years gained a loyal fan base and released two albums of his original songs and compositions with that band.
The start of the pandemic in 2020 would see a new phase of Ezra’s artistry emerge. With all live music canceled for the foreseeable future and all his real life musical collaborations on hold, Ezra turned towards the dual focus of writing and recording his first “solo” album, as well as leveling up on the audio production skills required to create this album in isolation from his home studio. What emerged from this near two year deep dive into these creative processes is his 2022 full length LP “The Softened Sky”. However, it is somewhat misleading to call Ezra’s latest LP a “solo album” as The Softened Sky is abundantly adorned with overflowing talent found in his musical community and features performances by Dan “Lebo Lebowitz, Rainbow Girls, Steve Adams, Reed Mathis, Stu Allen, Kelly Mcfarling, Tiny Home, Lorenzo Loera, Jordan Feinstein, Scott Law and others.
With 10 new songs all written between March - Nov 2020, lyrically Ezra takes on some poignant topics that emerged during the cultural and political zeitgeist that was 2020 in real time. He also does his fair share of self- introspection, musings about ecological destruction and our place in the cosmos, and offering up his ever-hopeful, yet sober assessment of how we may find a way out of the societal breakdowns that currently plague us to glimpse a better future together.
Ezra is truly a one in a kind musical presence and, as his Grandma would say, “quite a character!”
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