Album Notes

Julia Jordan is a singer/songwriter who writes about life, love and meditation. Her soulful, self-empowering songs pull inspiration from her jazz and folk roots, her urban street education and her natural R&B soul. The arrangements, which are acoustic based, are intimate yet sophisticated and warm; like the old friend you call when you need advice. What Julia has accomplished is a harmonious combination of rhythmic, Lauryn Hill-like guitar parts with the poetic introspection of Joni Mitchell, two of the many artists that she credits as providing her inspiration over the years.

Julia also credits her father, master guitarist Stanley Jordan, with contributing a deep source of musical support. This year, she appeared on his Grammy nominated song, “Steppin’ Out”, and also toured with him to Cairo, Egypt. On the other side, her mother is a poet who can pull beauty from any life moment. She taught Julia the power of her own words, showing her that it is a power to be used for reaching people at the deepest level. New York City was an amazing place for young Julia, a naturally independent freethinker, to spend her school years. But it wasn’t until her trips to the desert to visit her father that Julia found the inspiration she needed to start writing music about self-empowerment and self-reflection. “Of course there’s heartbreak and sappy love songs, but what about life? What can I write about the sun?” she asks of her deepening awareness. Julia spent three years in the southwest desert perfecting her sound, singing loud over mountaintops and playing guitar late into the night. “I found a certain kind of solitude out there, something that the city couldn’t provide,” she says. “I found my horizon, and a way to offer my voice to those incredible sunsets every time I sang.”

Julia has no doubt embraced her jazz pedigree, using it as a force for inspiring people and bringing them together. At only 25 years old, Julia has already graced the stages of many legendary venues, including New York’s Birdland, Sugar Bar and Alice Tully Hall; Los Angeles’ Room 5 Lounge, Temple Bar and Catalina Bar and Grill; the Buzios Jazz y Blues Festival in Buzios, Brazil; and the Cairo Opera House in Cairo, Egypt.

Her debut album, Urban Legacy, released in 2007, has received rave reviews from music publications and websites across the United States. The highly anticipated sophomore album, EP For The People celebrates our inter-connectedness by showing us how to first look inside ourselves and recognize what makes us each unique. Due to be released at the end of 2009, this EP will feature music influenced by the current social, political and spiritual revolutions that are taking place around the world.

Julia Jordan’s music quenches the ears like cool lemonade, like light, like optimism. It rejuvenates and inspires from the inside out, leaving no doubt that her influence on the new generation of music lovers will be lasting and deep.