Jason Mraz to Sing in Updated “We Are the World”?

I just saw this at sfgate.com:

“Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie’s revamped “We Are The World” recording session is taking place at the same Los Angeles recording studio where the original tune was recorded 25 years ago.

Stars like Akon, Jason Mraz, Bono, Wyclef Jean, Usher and Lady Gaga are expected to flood the historic A&M complex in Hollywood on Monday night to re-record the charity anthem.

The new song will benefit the aid relief in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Stars like Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen and Diana Ross originally joined songwriters Richie and Michael Jackson and producer Jones in the studio on January 28, 1985 to record the track.

That record raised more than $30 million for USA for Africa, a nonprofit organization founded by the singers to fund hunger relief in Africa.”

I guess we’ll find out soon.

Jason Mraz Wins Two Grammys! And Nobody Sees It

Figures, right? Jason gets a little recognition from the music industry, but it happens during the untelevised portion of the show. Ah, well.

Jason won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for “Make It Mine”, which is a bit surprising considering I don’t think it’s gotten much radio time and I can’t believe many Grammy voters have ever heard the song. He beat out John Legend, Maxwell (I had no idea he was still around), Seal and Stevie Wonder. Not a shabby group of nominees.

He also won Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals for “Lucky” with Colbie Caillat, which isn’t surprising at all, because that’s on the radio all the time.

I believe the untelevised bits were streamed live online, but I can’t find a photo or video clip of any of this. (Was Jason even at the show?) If you know of one, please send it my way. His own website is useless for that kind of thing.

Wait. I found some:

Jason Mraz on the red carpet. And hey! Weird Al! (Video)

Jason Mraz gets interviewed by Nick Cannon. “Concentrated like orange juice.” (Video)

Jason Mraz gets interviewed by Justin Guarini. (I can’t believe that guy is still around.) (Video)

Jason Mraz wins Best Male Pop Vocal. (Article)

Is that Kramer hair, or Lyle Lovitt? Ooh! Neither. That’s Giovanni Ribisi in “The Wonder Years”. Check it out:

Whatever. Jason makes it all his own.

I’m following your joy,
Lisa

Update 2/4/10: Here’s a little more Mraz Grammy coverage:

Jason is interviewed for the Jay Leno Show while chewing a lot of gum . (“He just won two Grammys and he looks like he just woke up from a nap.”)

And, of course, Jason’s blog about Grammy night.

Listen to Jason Mraz’s Song of Love

If you’re still looking for it, here’s a link to Jason’s song “Quote Christian/Love is All Around”:

http://www.mediafire.com/?t4ny4z1wnht

This version includes an intro by Jason to the young man he wrote the song for. Lovely, isn’t it?

The Songs of Love Foundation didn’t score the million dollar grant from Chase Community Giving, but they did get enough votes for a $25,000 grant. That’s not too shabby. If you don’t know what they do, read more about them.

It’s a wonderful vision,
Lisa

Mraz Plays Cord Progression in February

I demonstrated some excellent restraint yesterday.

I got the email that tickets were going on sale for Cord Progression, “a special night of music in support of spinal cord injury awareness” with our man Jason Mraz and our special friends Bushwalla and the Makepeace Brothers, and I was determined to go.

Sure, the show was in Long Beach and I had no idea who I was going with or how I would get there, I just wanted to go.

As soon as the clock flipped to 10:00 I was on Ticketmaster and had two sixth row tickets in my basket. Then the voices in my head started to argue:

You don’t need to spend this money.
It’s for a good cause!
You’re saving to buy a house.
I deserve a little fun!
You don’t even know if anyone else wants to go.
Who cares?!

In the end, I decided just the fact that I was hearing voices probably meant that the $160 plus travel expenses could be better spent elsewhere, or not spent at all. And there will be other Mraz shows this year, hopefully closer to home.

If you’re interested though, tickets are still on sale (the show is at the Long Beach Terrace Theatre on Saturday, February 27th, 2010), and it is for a good cause, and you can’t go wrong with a Mraz-Bushwalla show.

I don’t wanna wait no more,
Lisa

Jason Mraz Takes Over Hulu.com

It’s one thing to see the little notice on Facebook that, “Now you can watch Jason Mraz on Hulu.com! Check out Jason’s Hulu page, where you’ll find all of Jason’s music videos as well as live performances and behind-the-scenes clips.”

It’s another thing to settle in for my lunchtime episode of “Arrested Development” and see this when I get to Hulu:

Not the best picture I’ve ever seen of him, but it’s still pretty cool that he’s a big enough name to be promoted alongside episodes of “Human Target” and “Modern Family”.

It’s also nice to have so many video clips in one place. It doesn’t have “Yoga to Go” or his “Vs.” tour videos or any of the little homemade videos he’s done and posted on his blog, but it’s a start.

I don’t remember the last time I watched the video for “Remedy”. Who is that young kid in the trucker hat? And, oh my, just look at all those roosters.

This is a dangerous liason,
Lisa

Jason Mraz Writes a Song of Love

It sounds like a Valentine’s Day promo, but it’s much cooler than that. The Songs of Love foundation asks musicians to write songs for seriously ill children. Jason’s song was written for a 13-year-old cancer patient and is the 20,000th song produced by the charity, which is really impressive.

You can see the video for Jason’s song, but first, go and vote for this charity to get a big grant so they can help even more kids in need.

After you do that, vote for something not quite as important. Jason is going to put out a new shirt for… now’s the time for it… Valentine’s Day! I don’t think I’d wear any of the proposed designs (Doves in a 69, one eating the other? Weird.), but maybe one of them is your style.

I do love the votemraz.com URL. Hopefully they can use that for other events in the future.

Lisa

What’s Jason Mraz Doing in 2010?

Hell if I know.

Joseph Gordon-Mraz on SNL

Now then, moving on. I can’t believe I forgot about the People’s Choice Awards last night. Well, I can believe it because I’ve been going in circles and forgetting lots of things lately, but still. I looked at the TV Guide, I saw that there were “Glee” reruns and didn’t really bother to see what else was on.

I did, however, flip around during commercials and at some point saw that the awards were on and even managed to catch Jason’s category, probably using the same Mrazian luck that had me catch the Joseph Gordon-Levitt skit about Mraz on SNL even though I rarely watch the show.

As you probably know by now, Jason didn’t win in the Favorite Male Artist cateogry. Keith Urban did, and that’s ok because I always get a kick out of seeing this Nashville looking guy get up and saunter on stage and then open his mouth and talk like Steve Irwin (May He Rest In Peace).

It was a little surprising because the rest of the awards followed the Teen Choice model, with vampires and Disney acts doing very well, and I would have thought the Tween Twitter crowd would have been more in Jason’s demographic than Keiths, but maybe the Aussies pulled some strings.

If radio play is an indicator, Jason might be having a quieter 2010 than 2009 was for him. I wrote a while back that “I’m Yours” was on almost every morning around the time my alarm went off, but I haven’t heard it in a few weeks now. Instead, there are Mraz-esque songs in its place. I’m talking about Michael Franti’s “Say Hey (I Love You)” and Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister”.

They both have the same beachy, casual vibe, but they haven’t been played thousands of times so they come off a little fresher.

My hope for Jason in 2010 is that he gets a little rest, a lot of free play time to foster his creativity and that we all get to see him live at least once this summer.

Ain’t that Mr. Mister on the radio?
Lisa

2009: The Year in Jason Mraz

I did this last year, but it was easier then because I was writing more often and had more information to choose from. Still, there were definite highlights this year, so let’s take a quick look back at 2009.

January

• President Obama is sworn in to rule the country, and Jason Mraz is introduced to the late night crowd on SNL. He’d done late night before, but this was his first Saturday Night Live appearance, and it kicked off a year of “I’m Yours” dominating the charts.

February

• Jason went to the  Grammys! He didn’t win, but he looked very slick inhis suit and his mom got to wear a lot of fancy jewelry.
• My blog got its 100,000th visitor!

March

• This time in 2008, Jason went to Africa and told us all about it. This time in 2009, I went to New Zealand and Australia and wrote a bit about it, including all the Mraz… soundings? (like a sighting, but aural instead of visual) I had.

April

• I played a lame April Fool’s joke and said that I was going to turn this space into a Robert Pattinson fan site. No one bought it, but that post remains one of the most trafficked on here. Thanks, Twilighters.

May

• Jason Mraz was on American Idol and I missed it.
• You can still watch it though.
• Jason performed a midnight show in Vegas. James Morrison opened and Bushwalla, Justin Kredible and Colbie Caillat were also on hand. It was one of my favorite Mraz concert experiences.

June

• Jason Mraz + Lasers = Awesome.
• Jason was awarded the Hal David Starlight Award for young songwriters. There was a ceremony and everything.

July

• Jason taught us about Freestyle Yoga, and I find it even harder to believe that they wouldn’t let him host SNL. I mean, musical guest is good and all, but he’s at least as funny as Justin Timberlake.

August

• Jason was all over the place this summer. He toured, he was on TV, and the radio couldn’t get enough of him. This month he played The Today Show, the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, and I got to see him at the Ironside Ampitheater in Murphys, a little town I didn’t even know existed until this show.
• Also in August I heard some strange rumblings about the Cafe Gratitude. Let’s hope it’s not really as creepy as some former employees make it sound.

September

• Jason broke the Billboard record when “I’m Yours” logged a chart-best 70th week, passing the 69-week stay of LeAnn Rimes’ “How Do I Live”. It stayed on for a total of 76 weeks.

October

• I went on vacation, but Jason continued touring and blogging.

November

• Not only was Jason popular enough to perform on SNL earlier this year, apparently he became recognizable enough to be lampooned on SNL. Joseph Gordon Levitt did an excellent job of it.

December

• Even bigger and better than SNL, FarmAid or the Nobel Peace Prize concert he played in 2008, Jason got to play Sesame Street and duet with Elmo. Now I’m jealous.
• Jason ended the year with a new holiday video. I still think last year’s is the greatest holiday video ever, but the new one is good too.

Here’s hoping for more Mrazaliciousness in 2010. Whatever that is.

Lisa

Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat on Letterman

I didn’t find out about this until the day after it happened because it wasn’t posted on Facebook until around 6:30 p.m., but everything is on YouTube now, so it doesn’t really matter if you caught it live or not.

God bless technology.

This is not Jason’s first time on Letterman, but Dave still can’t pronounce his last name. Sigh.

Jason Mraz Visits Sesame Street

Love it.

Happy Holidays,
Lisa