Ronnie Laws

An award-winning tenor saxophonist and composer, Ronnie Laws has moved between jazz and R&B since the early 1970s. Seven of his albums have entered the Top 200 since 1975, among them the 1975 Blue Note debut Pressure Sensitive, while numerous tracks and additional albums have appeared on six other charts. As a sought-after session musician and stage performer he has accompanied a roster of jazz and R&B figures that includes Ramsey Lewis, Gregory Porter, B.B. King, George Duke, Quincy Jones, Stanley Jordan, and many more.

The younger brother of flutist Hubert Laws, he grew up in a musical household; his sisters Debra and Eloise both work as professional singers. Born in Houston, Texas, Laws taught himself alto saxophone at age eleven. A serious eye injury ended an early baseball ambition, so he concentrated on music, studying it in high school, at Stephen F. Austin State, and later at Texas Southern University, where he switched to tenor, received a degree, and refined an advanced technique.

In 1970 he relocated to Los Angeles to pursue music. He rehearsed extensively with the Jazz Crusaders—Hubert having performed with the group in the 1950s—and especially with Hugh Masakela. Early local engagements included work with pianist Walter Bishop, Jr., Doug Carn, and appearances on his brother’s CTI sessions. In 1972 he spent eighteen months with Earth, Wind & Fire as its first saxophonist, handling both tenor and soprano parts on Last Days and Time. There he met Donald Byrd, who became a friend and secured him a Blue Note contract.

Despite peaking at number 73, the 1975 debut Pressure Sensitive received substantial radio attention and introduced the enduring jazz-funk standard “Always There,” which more than one hundred artists have since covered or sampled. Throughout the remainder of the decade—on 1976’s Fever, Friends and Strangers, and Flame, the last containing his first cross-continental 12-inch hit “All for You”—Laws built a reputation as a tireless studio player, contributing to dates by Ramsey Lewis, his sister Eloise, Arthur Adams, Gene McDaniels, and Wayne Henderson.

During the 1980s he became a regular attraction at international festivals and clubs. Three singles drawn from his first three albums of the period, along with the corresponding LPs, all attained gold status. Although frequently labeled a smooth-jazz artist, he may have been the first instrumentalist to register hits in the emerging quiet-storm subgenre of R&B. He also began featuring his voice alongside saxophone on selections such as the title track of Every Generation (1980), “Stay Awake” from 1981’s Solid Ground, and “Mr. Nice Guy” (1982). The latter single remained on the R&B chart for eighteen weeks and reached number 19. Moving among United Artists, Capitol, and Columbia, he issued Mr. Nice Guy in 1983 and All Day Rhythm in 1987; ten of his tracks appeared on Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs during the decade.

True Spirit opened the 1990s by returning to his hard jazz-funk foundation. The album failed to chart domestically yet succeeded in Europe, securing festival appearances and performances at Ronnie Scott’s. In 1994 Natural Laws, released on the Right Stuff label, reached number 34 on the jazz chart. Four years later he rejoined Blue Note for Portrait of the Isley Brothers: Harvest for the World, which peaked at 41. Dream a Little, a vocal R&B set with jazz inclinations, followed in 2000; his two sisters and Gregory Porter guested, and the track “Old Days/Old Ways” climbed to number 36 on Adult R&B. Signing with Eddie Holland’s HDH label in 2004, he recorded Everlasting, which entered the jazz chart at number 39. Although no further album has appeared, Laws continues to tour and record sessions; in 2017 he issued the R&B single “Settle Down” on Bungalo/CIA.