Lesa Carlson

Lesa Carlson is an American musician, and also actress, raw foods chef, choreographer, and former Miss Idaho in America's Miss Pageant. Her background includes three years of opera training, awards bestowed in both New York City and Los Angeles, and performances with members of the Turkish National Symphony.

"Blue mod" singer Lesa Carlson founded and creatively directed Lesa Carlson Off Blue, a critically acclaimed jazz ensemble fusing old-school jazz, turntablism, and multimedia. Weaving turntablism with improvised jazz vocals and grooves, Carlson combines seemingly disparate forms in her music. Lesa has performed at the House of Blues, the Hotel Niko, the Three of Clubs, 02 (Woody Harrelson's restaurant), and the premier party for Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy's feature film Bowfinger. She also held artist residencies at The Knitting Factory, Atlas, and Louis XIV. Over the years she has played with Soko Richardson, Kenny Moore, Jack Sheldon, and Linda Hopkins. Lesa is currently working in the studio with producer Chris Gubisch and grammy nominated Bruce Sugar. Recently recorded singles include "Laissez-Faire" and "Robert Johnson Motherfucker."

Evolution into the Conscious Revolution is a fully improvised jazz album weaving bassist Miles Mosley and drummer Robert Perkins together with Lesa Carlson's vocal abstractions throughout the album."Carlson belts like the love child of Jim Morrison and Grace Slick, a chanteuse-turned-shaman, twisting familiar standards like "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" into beat-poet meditations and crooning hypnotic originals like "Lessons of the Leaves" like she's summoning up some old pagan earth god for a little jam session." Turntable effects feature Martin Luther King samples.

Track listing

1. Brother Can You Spare A Dime – 4:17
2. Serenade The Sea – 6:04
3. Nature Boy – 6:12
4. Evolution – 4:29
5. Her Nursery – 5:38
6. Lesson of the Leaves – 3:48
7. Lazy Days – 5:52
8. Your Face – 6:59
9. Change– 6:40
10. Blue, Yellow and Green – 4:16

Lesa also worked on the album with trumpeter Bryan Lipps, Gimel Hooper & Edward Alfonso on turntables and flutist Harold Bennett. Songs written and produced by Lesa Carlson. Co-produced by Jon Griffin. Recorded in 2002 at the Center for the Recording Arts, Los Angeles.

Lesa is a professional actor working both in film and in theater. She's a life member of The Actor's Studio (Presidents: Ellen Burstyn, Harvey Keitel, Al Pacino, Martin Landau & Mark Rydell.)Film roles have included Flesh Suitcase, Last Escape, Silk Stalkings, Dangerous Waters and Luster.Her acting manager is Charles Kienzle with Sweet Revenge Entertainment.

Lesa's influences are Leonard Cohen, Amedeo Modigliani, Albert Einstein, Robyn Hitchcock, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Grace Jones, Martha Graham, Led Zeppelin, Orson Welles, Nina Simone, Julie Mcginnis, Tennessee Williams, Betty Carter, Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, Thelonious Monk, James Dean, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Isaac Hayes, Shelley Winters, Arthur Miller, John Lennon, Elia Kazan, and Mark Rydell.

Lesa is an internationally known raw foods chef and eco-entrepreneur. She created five raw food-based businesses, including three packaged foods lines sold through specialty grocery outlets such as Whole Foods, a raw food delivery service called Seed Live Cuisine, and the Silverlake restaurant Jade Raw Fusion.She developed and currently operates Raw Body Bar, an exclusive, home-delivery raw food pharmacy program.

She was born and raised in the mountains of Idaho and on Shoshoni Native American lands.She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

• Carlson Residency, Music Connection, March 26, 2001 – April 8, 2001
• Raw Deal, Self Magazine, November 2002 
• God is in the Diet, W, April 2003 
• From LA: Raw Trends, Vogue, November 2003