Jason Mraz is a musical seeker. What else do you call a pop artist who goes from hitting the Broadway stage (playing a major role during a 10-week run in “Waitress” in 2017) to recording a reggae album (2020′s “Look For the Good”) before setting his sights on cutting a bluegrass project (a currently untitled collection of songs set to drop in 2024)?
As an artist who has let his instincts guide him ever since releasing his 2002 debut “Waiting For My Rocket to Come,” he followed much the same modus operandi in making the recently released self-described roller disco outing “Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride (MMRRR).” The process for this new project was driven by the success of “Look For the Good” and translated into a seamless 10-day recording stretch in New York City last year in which Mraz reunited with a number of former collaborators, including Los Angeles outfit Raining Jane and producer Martin Terefe, who first worked with Mraz as a songwriter in the early 2000s.
Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
“[MMRRR] was a little bit inspired by the experience I had from reggae,” Mraz explained in a July interview. “The reggae album informed me of dance because in reggae everyone is playing percussion. Piano is playing percussion, guitar is playing percussion — there is just so much rhythm going on — I didn’t expect that. These mellow tunes that I wrote surprised me. When I sit back and listen to that reggae record I realized that every song was a dance track. That really got me excited because I always wanted to make a dance album, but I always thought it was going to have to be with a DJ or be an EDM project.
“The reggae album really informed me that I can do this with the band and that what we needed to do was find the right pocket and the right rhythm that we’re all playing to make it work,” he said. “Also during the pandemic, I started roller skating, which is something I loved to do as a kid. Falling in love with skating again got me back into the rinks where basically new music is being played, the new disco of today — the Dua Lipas, the Doja Cats, the Megan Thee Stallions. The new hip-hop and the new disco is all still happening at the roller rink. I was heavily influenced by that — to see if I could make music that could stand up to stuff like that.”
Coming right off the road from the “Look For the Good” tour, Mraz reconnected with Terefe, who informed the Virginia native that he’d just opened Kensaltown East in New York City. Mraz immediately inquired about renting this studio and invited his former producer to hang around and be an extra set of ears. This hand-in-glove arrangement reflected the ease in which all these songs came to fruition.
“We even recorded [the album] without a full agreement that Martin was the producer, which made it feel easy,” Mraz said. “There was no pressure and no stress. There was just the joy of old friends getting back together to make more music. ‘I Feel Like Dancing’ came together on tour because the audience was dancing and we needed more music in our set for dancing. Every time I sat down to write a song the universe was just gifting me everything I needed for it. So it was really easy.”
With the basic rhythm and vocal tracks laid down during his Big Apple layover, Mraz briefly stopped off in Nashville to work with some other long-time collaborators (Carlos Sosa, the Grooveline Horns and string arranger David Davidson) before returning to his own Oceanside, California, home studio to lay down guitar tracks.
Credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
The result ranges from the lush orchestrated R&B of “Pancakes and Butter” that casts off a Hi Records-meets-Philadelphia International Records vibe and the chugging Bruno Mars-flavored “I Feel Like Dancing” to the ethereal grooves of “Disco Sun” and funky “You Might Like It” carried by more a mix of darting strings and a dollop of sitar. With all this rhythmic inspiration being driven by the last album and subsequent tour, concertgoers can expect more of the same when Mraz and his crew Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain on Aug. 11.
“We do our best every night to bring [’MMRRR’] to life,” he said. “We don’t play the full album because we also have other albums that we lean into. But the new album is definitely a highlight. There are 12 of us on stage, from cello to sitar to two drummers to horn players, guitarist, lap steel, synthesizers, keytars, dance moves. It’s a wild fun circus that kind of goes through my entire catalog, but spends a lot of time on the new record and how they all weave together. They’re all songs that cheer us on, stoke the fires of love or present gratitude because that’s the point. People come to a concert to have fun and let loose. We have a very vocal audience so that’s quite fun.”
While dance is the rocket fuel for Mraz’s latest creative pivot, it also reflects a deeper meaning for him as he muses about moving into middle age. When asked about the meaning of this form of expression, the singer-songwriter who just turned 46 on June 23, shared that the importance of dance goes far beyond being able to bust a move.
“Dance is about humility and that’s where it starts for me because I don’t really know what I’m doing and I feel like I do it differently every time,” he said. “It’s a way to kind of shake off some kind of narcissism or ego and reduce myself to my simplest form. I’m just human and trying to figure out how to move this body and how to make it work. Through that, I’m giving my other band members permission to be goofy and then I’m giving the audience permission to be goofy. But then it starts to get empowering. I strip myself down to my dorkiest, but then I start to feel like there is some technicality to this. And every time I start to learn some technicality, I feel a little cooler. I get to rebuild myself. So it’s freeing in a way. I plan to do a lot more of it. This is just the beginning of me.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Jason Mraz
8 p.m. Aug. 11. $27-$131.50. Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park, 4469 Stella Drive NW, Atlanta. livenation.com.
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