Jared Lowery has been a regular sideman guitarist in various projects of various styles and genres in OKC for many years and is well known in the local music community. His own music and playing style has been described as “Jazz Rock Fusion” in the same stylings as Tony Williams Lifetime, Allan Holdsworth, Tribal Tech etc. due to the futuristic and often sci fi influences Jared has, his fans and his band mates alike often refer to his music as “Spazz” being space + Jazz = Spazz.
Jared is available for sessions, performances, and more
Interview:
A New Beginning
July 2025:
It’s time to announce my newest album in the works. “Liberation”
I want to thank the support over the years I have been active in OKC and beyond. Your support has meant the world to me. You always been there for me and cheered me on in so many ways. I want to share a couple of new developments and announce my album coming up along with a single to be released this year.
I feel my sound has reached a new level of maturity that is very distinguished from previous endeavors. Being a fusion shredding kind of player and looking at how I play now, I see a level of growth not previously observed. Truth is I still play the way I always do and will but now I have other options and have been playing in a more contemporary way. In this new album you will hear many songs with upright bass and piano like you’d expect in a traditional jazz album. This was intentional and few tunes will feature electric bass with the exception of a couple. I really wanted to focus on a jazz like album. I don’t see myself ever trying to go back to my original sound that I had where I really focused on carrying out that Holdsworthian lead tone and chordal work. I’ve found a sound that I believe really suits me and style that I’m enjoying.
The album itself will feature about 8 tunes.
- Ouroboros
- Perth
- Thoughts and Prayers
- New Beginnings
- What Would You Say?
- Song for Tim
- Getcha Sum
- Liberation
These titles of tunes, and the mental state I was in when I wrote them all reflect me and this new person I felt I’ve become that in a way I have always been.
I went through a really horrible experience shortly after Personal Wars was released and I truly felt after that experience I would never be the same and I was right. To spare the details, I’ll just say it was discovery of a betrayal that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. That pain made me feel as if the person I was once had died.
New Beginnings came to me unwillingly but still I embraced them and I’m glad I did. I believe I went through a state of spiritual death and rebirth. Realizing that I was worth more than I thought I deserved. So that leads to the song titles.
Through my new beginnings and my rebirth, or the Ouroboros which I had to get a tattoo of featuring a snake in a figure 8 eating itself, I felt empowered to bettering myself. I became loyal to myself, gym every week at least 3-4xs a day and lost weight. I found that getting tattoos were therapeutic for me and I also thought I should rebrand myself as I truly felt that who I was now was a different person but weirdly in a way, it felt I was rediscovering myself. Like I’ve always been this person but I never felt like I could truly be him. Or wasn’t allowed.
So Ouroboros and New Beginnings are inspired from the aforementioned experiences. Thoughts and Prayers started out as a piece I wrote for a hypothetical instrument I wanted to make that uses free reeds. I ended up redoing it and thought I’d include it in the album. It’s one of the few swinging jazz pieces on the album with a traditional sound and in a 3/4 time signature.
Some may know this in the Tulsa music scene, but Tim Shadley was a dear friend to me and a huge supporter. I was present in 2023 for his funeral and got the call from a friend that he lost his battle to cancer. I related to Tim’s struggle with cancer as I too had cancer. Tim was a key part in JLG and I loved having him in the group. Song for Tim is my homage to him and his signature Latin chick corea type of piano fusion with my own touch.
Getcha Sum is a funky tune featuring some local legends on the recording like Carl Victor Moore and Bryon Chopz Collins. This tune features a OSU graduate student named Avery Johnson on upright bass. This tune was wrote back in 2017 and features a distorted fusion shred guitar solo like I always have done and will feature an organ solo as well. The vibe on this tune is a lot like George Duke meets a shreddier version of John Schofield. The tune is very funky and I think will be a favorite to play live
Perth is one of my favorite tunes to play and one of my favorites I have wrote. I met an Australian woman online whom I chatted with and just loved talking to.. though we talked at different time zones, we really became close and decided to have a long distance relationship. She then came here in Oklahoma all the way from Perth Western Australia and the experiences I had with her were life changing and I felt like a missing piece of myself was finally reunited with me being with her.. we fell in love and this tune Perth was a reflection of the melody id hear in my head every time we talked. Then in Jan 2025, I flew for the first time in my life, all the way to Perth WA. From Oklahoma City to Houston, to Sydney to Perth. She waited for me in the arrival lounge and we hugged and kissed. Then we went home. The next day we went camping near Margaret River and I got the whole Australian outback experience. My life and perspective especially on life in the USA changed dramatically. I didn’t want to go home but when it was time to, I said my goodbyes and flew back to Oklahoma wishing I could have stayed longer. I plan on returning soon but she will be returning soon this year! Then I can ask her a question, “What Would You Say?”
New Beginnings, What Would You Say?, Perth, Ouroboros, Thoughts and Prayers, all feature a guitar sound that is unique to my typical sound. It’s less distorted but still compressed enough for me to play the type of legato lines I like to play. This allows me to have a more traditional jazz sound while retaining my vocabulary.
Thus leads to Liberation.. through my rebirth I found liberation. Also in the months leading into the decision to compile these songs into an album lead me to discover Soukous music. I was enthralled by it and instantly wanted to learn it to incorporate it. For me the music made me think of powerful anthems and thus I wrote Liberation and the single I’ll be releasing with the album, Ibrahim, wrote after the current leader of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore. Seeing a young president take the state and its countries resources to directly help its own people instead of those that colonized it really inspired me and gave me hope.
So overall this album is a grand statement to my growth as a person and musician and I hope when it releases you get a better sense of who I am and what I am. Release date to be announced. Thanks again for all your support!
– Jared
Jared Lowery 