Azar Lawrence is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader based in Los Angeles whose big, open tone is at once exploratory and soulful. With a career that stretches more than half a century, he has worked alongside jazz legends including McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, and Elvin Jones. Lawrence has done extensive session and live work with blues and R&B performers including Muddy Waters, Marvin Gaye, and Phyllis Hyman. For Prestige, he led three seminal spiritual jazz-funk outings: 1974's Bridge to the New Age, 1975's Summer Solstice, and 1976's People Moving. During the 1980s, he worked extensively with L.A. songwriting and production team Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, as well as jazzmen Stanley Turrentine and Henry Butler. In 1985 he released the funky fusion outing Shadow Dancing. After two decades of struggling with health issues, Lawrence returned with Speak the Word in 2009. Prayer for My Ancestors appeared in 2010, followed by The Seeker in 2014 and Elementals for HighNote in 2018. In 2021, Light in the Attic reissued Shadow Dancing. Lawrence released New Sky on his own Trazar Records in 2022; Light in the Attic reissued Shadow Dancing the same year.

Lawrence was born in Los Angeles in 1952. His biggest musical influence early on was his mother, who taught music and led their church choir. At age five, he played violin in the Los Angeles Junior Symphony, then viola. At 13, he heard John Coltrane's saxophone and there was no turning back. Lawrence switched to tenor saxophone (and later mastered soprano and alto as well). He spent his teen years immersed in jazz at the home of his best friend, none other than Reggie Golson, son of composer/arranger/saxophonist Benny Golson. Lawrence joined the renowned Dorsey High School Jazz Workshop a year later. After his junior year, he toured Europe with Muddy Waters. During his senior year, he played with the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band and War with Eric Burdon.

After high school, Lawrence spent time learning from Horace Tapscott in the pianist's Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra while also playing a club run with George Cables, Candy Finch, Larry Gales, and Woody Shaw. He also performed with Ike Tina Turner's band. At age 19, he auditioned for and won a spot in drummer Elvin Jones' touring band, where he remained for five years.

Jones recommended the young saxophonist to pianist McCoy Tyner, his bandmate in the John Coltrane Quartet. Impressed by the balance of technical prowess, spirituality, and emotion in his playing, Tyner hired him. Lawrence not only toured with the pianist but played on three now classic albums by him: 1973's Enlightenment, 1974's Sama Layuca, and 1975's Atlantis. Prestige Records, Tyner's label at the time, offered Lawrence his own deal. His first leader outing was 1974's Bridge into the New Age. A five-song set of all originals, it crisscrossed post-bop, spiritual soul-jazz, Latin and Afro Cuban jazz, and funky acoustic modal jazz. Its star-studded revolving lineup included pianist Joe Bonner, Shaw on trumpet, vocalist Jean Carn, trombonist Julian Priester, Arthur Blythe on alto, and Billy Hart and Leon Ndugu Chancler on drums. That same year, Miles Davis invited the saxophonist to join his road band. Lawrence played with the trumpeter at Carnegie Hall and appeared on Dark Magus.

Lawrence released Summer Solstice in 1975. Moving across spiritual soul-jazz, Afro-Brazilian music, and Latin jazz, the date included guitarist Amaury Tristao pianists Albert Dailey and Dom Salvador, bassist Ron Carter, trombonist Raul De Souza, flutist Gerald Hayes, and Hart on drums. That year, he also sat in on Shaw's The Moontrane and played on Jones' New Agenda. The following year, Lawrence joined the all-star cast on pianist and composer Gene Harris' jazz-funk classic In a Special Way and released People Moving, his acclaimed third and final date for Prestige. Funkier than either of its predecessors, it hinted at the musical direction Lawrence was beginning to travel. Its cast included keyboardist/vocalist Patrice Rushen, bassist Paul Jackson, guitarist Lee Ritenour, drummer Harvey Mason, James Mtume on percussion, George Bohanon on trombone, trumpeter Oscar Brashear, and saxophonists Ernie Watts and Buddy Collette.

In 1977, Lawrence was touring his own groups but was increasingly in demand as a session player. He was recruited by composer, pianist, and conceptualist Harry Whittaker to participate in the historic jazz-funk sessions for Black Renaissance: Body, Mind and Spirit in 1977; he also played on recordings by Freddie Hubbard, Deniece Williams, De Souza, and Phyllis Hyman, and played live with Frank Zappa. In 1978, Lawrence was part of the studio crew that recorded Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear. The following year, he co-founded the short-lived jazz-disco fusion project Chameleon with Gerald Brown, Delbert Taylor, and Ronald Bruner, Sr.; Lawrence not only played on their lone, self-titled Elektra date, he co-produced it with Fred Wesley. The following year, Lawrence entered a working relationship with new wave pop-cum-disco songwriters, producers, and recording artists Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis. He appeared in their outfits Le Pamplemousse and El Coco.

In 1980, Lawrence played on the Leslie Drayton Orchestra's Our Music Is Your Music while touring and recording with Le Pamplemousse. He joined saxophonist Stanley Turrentine's top-flight cast for the jazz-funk stunner Home Again in 1982. (Other players included bassists Nathan East and Abe Laboriel, Jerry Peters, Victor Feldman, and Chuck Jackson.) The following year, he played synthesizers and co-wrote three selections on Earth, Wind Fire's charting, gold-certified Powerlight. In 1985, Lawrence recorded the funky smooth jazz groover Shadow Dancing for the independent Riza label. His sidemen included drummer James Gadson, Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli, and percussionist Eddie Bongo Brown. It would be the last album to appear under Lawrence's name for more than two decades. He finished the decade working with jazz pianist Henry Butler on the celebrated Fivin' Around, and joining the sessions for Welcome Home by L.A. R&B vocal group the Waters.

Lawrence spent the next decade-and-a-half away from music, struggling with his health. He returned in 2006 leading the Edward Bayers Quartet for the live Legacy and Music of John Coltrane and led his own quartet for 2009's modal jazz outing Speak the Word. In 2010, he joined the Gathering collective, who independently released Leimert Park: Roots Branches of Los Angeles Jazz. Later that year, he issued the widely acclaimed Prayer for My Ancestors, which showcased him leading a quartet with drummer Alphonse Mouzon, pianist Nate Morgan, and bassist Henry Franklin. He joined Franklin's quartet for that year's O, What a Beautiful Morning! and 2009's Home Cookin'. That summer, Lawrence participated in a series of live events at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex in Los Angeles. He performed with pioneering vibraphonist and Ethio-jazz creator Mulatu Astatke. Their date was issued a year later as Mochilla Presents Timeless: Mulatu Astatke.

The saxophonist was also playing his own club and road gigs. He issued the globally celebrated Mystic Journey in 2010 with a lineup that included pianist Benito Gonzalez, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, altoist Gerald Hayes, bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Rashied Ali in his final recording session. The album is dedicated to his memory. Lawrence also played on the pianist's Circles in a quartet that included bassist Christian McBride, drummer Jeff Tain Watts, and tenorist Ron Blake. That year, Lawrence also played on Cast the First Stone, the debut album by jazz supergroup the Cookers and Like Someone in Love by vocalist and pianist Eden Atwood.

In 2014, Lawrence released The Seeker, a charting quartet date for Sunnyside with Gonzalez, Essiet, and Watts. He also played on pianist Franklin Kiermyer's Further with Gonzalez and bassist Juini Booth. After another year of touring, club, and session work, Lawrence teamed with Canadian saxophonist Al McLean and his quartet to record the digital Conduit, comprised exclusively of standards by Coltrane, Tyner, Charlie Parker, and others. In 2016, they released Frontiers using almost the same lineup. Lawrence issued Elementals for HighNote in 2018, a charting, wildly diverse program of post-bop and modal jazz. His sidemen on the date included Gonzalez, drummer Marvin Smitty Smith, percussionist Munyungo Jackson, and guitarist Greg Poree.

After sitting out 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lawrence debuted a new quartet streamed live on the World Stage in January 2021 with drummer Tony Austin, pianist Robert Turner, and bassist Seoku Bunch. Late in the year, Light in the Attic remastered and reissued 1985's exercise in jazz boogie Shadow Dancing. Meanwhile, Lawrence formed his own Trazar label and recorded 2022's New Sky. The lineup included John Beasley and Nduduzo Makhathini on pianos and keys, bassist Bunch, drummer Austin, percussionist Jackson, guitarists James Saez, Greg Poree, and Gregory GMOE Moore, harpist Destiny Muhammad, and various singers. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi