Urgency & Expansion

World-beating Nylon Stringer Lawson Rollins on 3 Minutes to Midnight and Scoring the Golden Soundtrack.

- Jimmy Leslie

“‘URGENCY NOW’ IS THE OVERRIDING concept on 3 Minutes to Midnight [Infinita],” explains contemporary world-jazz artist Lawson Rollins. “You’re alive in the moment trying to express as much as you can, as simply as you can. Everything hits from the get go, and you’ve got the gist of the tune within 30 seconds.”

It’s a real departure from the precision finger stylist’s past albums where atmospheric intros might meander, tunes tended to go off on tangents, and the composer would occasionally indulge himself in his fleet-fingered ability to rip solos. Rollins’ resolution led to shorter songs with meaningful melodic motifs and more poignant solos laced with judicious threads of shred. He incorporates new plucking techniques to play aptly timed flourishes at supersonic speeds that will make your head spin.

The classically trained maestro, renowned for seamlessly blending various Latin styles, first gained international prominence exploring world rhythms such as rumba, salsa, and samba as a duo with guitarist Dan Young before striking out on his own. Rollins’ fast-impact approach on his sixth solo CD of original compositions might yield him even more success on modern media platforms such as You- Tube, where he’s racked up millions of views. But Rollins is also branching out into the more ambient realm of writing for long-form video. He’s currently scoring the soundtrack for Golden [Brainstorm Pictures], which finds our nylon-string devotee playing steel-string acoustic, as well as electric guitar.

What made you decide to focus on nylon-string?