International Television and Film Star Lance Reddick Releases Debut Jazz CD "Contemplations & Remembrances"

Available Worldwide October 19

(Los Angeles, CA - October 4, 2010) -International television and film star, Lance Reddick releases his debut jazz CD, Contemplations & Remembrances, available worldwide October 19 at all online retail outlets. Advance digital purchase of the music is now available on Amazon.com. Singer, songwriter and composer, Reddick is best known as a critically-acclaimed actor in laudatory roles on television series such as THE WIRE, FRINGE, LOST, CSI MIAMI, LAW & ORDER: SVU, OZ and THE CORNER and movies including THE SIEGE, I DREAMED OF AFRICA, BROTHER TO BROTHER, TENNESSEE and JONAH HEX.

Reddick, a Yale Drama School alum, who got his artistic start in music, wants his devotees to see the flip side of his on-camera visage. His debut CD reflects his myriad musical loves and personal wanderings. The nine tracks on Contemplations & Remembrances are entirely written and composed by Reddick, who produced the CD on his independent label, Christai Productions. The Baltimore native displays his avid attention to various musical genres and the influences of his divergent list of personal faves. They include everyone from Stephen Sondheim to Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock to Sting. "When I'm writing I'm trying to get the experiences of human beings deeply into my songs," Reddick says. "And I'm looking to emulate my own idols in the music. I labored over every bit of this."

Classically trained at the Eastman School of Music in piano and composition, he has been cultivating his chops since his days as a choirboy at Grace & St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Baltimore City and as a pupil at Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Conservatory, where he enrolled while still a student at the Quakers Friends School in his hometown. Reddick's mother taught instrumental music for 40 years; his father was a high school English and social studies teacher before earning a law degree and becoming a public defender. From those familial, cultural and musical roots, Reddick has fashioned his own hybrid form of music, a stylized brand of jazz that is rife with ordinary stories and social commentary.

With Contemplations & Remembrances, Reddick says he aims for music-loving listeners of every stripe. He wants them to hear some note, some phrase, some arc of the brass section or tinkling of the piano that seems to be reaching just for them. "A lot of this music is autobiographical, some of it's completely fantastical," Reddick adds.

As a collection, the songs reflect the images, ideas and ideals that leave Reddick awestruck. "I have such a love of wisdom that, when I first left for college, I wanted to be a philosopher. That desire has never left-I just didn't think I would make a living at it," Reddick says. "For me, the beauty in all of this lay in seeing our human commonality. In every song, I was angling to find the human story, the shared human experience."