Mr. A To Z = Jason Mraz
25 Years Later...
Long before Jason Mraz was filling amphitheaters and topping the charts with songs like "I'm Yours" and "Lucky," he was a perky, peppy singer-songwriter performing in rooms the size of your living room—and I was lucky enough to be there for it.
In 2000, a few friends and I started meeting up in LA to catch weekly performances by this rising talent and his partner-in-crime, percussionist Toca Rivera. They lived in San Diego and made the weekly trek up the 405 to the Sunset Strip to perform, hone their craft, and spread their music.
These weren’t high-production concerts with pyrotechnics and massive light rigs. They were something much rarer and more magical: intimate, unpredictable, and deeply human showcases of raw talent and joyful creativity.
Whether it was a coffee shop corner or a restaurant back room, the vibe was one part open mic, one part spiritual gathering, one part musical masterclass.
What I remember most isn’t just the music—it was how he played it to the audience.
Jason Mraz had this uncanny ability to read the room, play with the energy, and make every audience feel like they were in on a secret. You could see the gears turning as he tested new material, improvised with words like a lyrical acrobat, and built rapport with every smile and strum. It was like watching a gifted chef experiment with flavors in real time, cooking up songs that would stick with you long after last call.
For two years, before record executives “discovered” him, we watched Jason Mraz get better and better every week. He wasn’t just a musician. He was an entertainer. Already a great songwriter, those early gigs were where he learned to command the stage with his masterful melodies and mellow vibes.
Even then, Jason’s lyrics were perceptive, intimate, and offbeat—celebrating the big and small in all of us. He made vulnerability feel like a superpower and sincerity feel like a party trick.
It always felt like Jason brought his whole self to his music. There was a fluidity in his lyrics, a softness in his presence, and an openness in his love songs that transcended gender. So when he publicly came out as bisexual in 2018, it didn’t feel like a shocking revelation—it felt more like an affirmation of what had always been part of his brand: authenticity, inclusivity, and love in all its forms.
Twenty-five years later, Jason Mraz is a household name. A Grammy-winner. Yet somehow, his music has never lost the warmth, wit, and wonder I first witnessed in those makeshift LA performance spaces.
It’s an honor to say I knew Jason “way back when.” And while those original venues are long gone or changed beyond recognition, the memory of those nights lives on—etched in melody and laughter. I hope to catch him live again someday, just to see how far he's come, and to feel that familiar spark that never really left.
From open mic wonder to Mr. A to Z—Jason Mraz is still writing his story, one heartfelt note at a time. And what a beautiful, open-hearted ride it’s been.
Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️
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FYC = STORIES + SUBSTACKS
ON THIS DAY = JUNE 23
BIRTHDAYS
1892 = Hubert "Jay" Stowitts = American artist and dancer 🌈
1894 = Alfred Kinsey = American sexologist and educator 🌈
1912 = Alan Turing = English mathematician and computer scientist 🌈
1927 = Bob Fosse = American actor, dancer, choreographer, and director
1929 = June Carter Cash = American singer-songwriter
1946 = Ted Shackelford = American actor
1957 = Frances McDormand = American actor
1972 = Selma Blair = American actor
1974 = Joel Edgerton = Australian actor
1975 = KT Tunstall = Scottish singer-songwriter
1977 = Jason Mraz = American singer-songwriter 🌈
1984 = Duffy = Welsh singer-songwriter and actor
EVENTS
1868 = Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer."
1894 = The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
1926 = The College Board administers the first SAT exam.
1969 = IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry.
1989 = Batman is released in theaters.
1991 = Sonic the Hedgehog is released in North America on the Sega Genesis platform, beginning the popular video game franchise.
HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES
Pride Month (ongoing)
PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY
“The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.”
Alfred Kinsey
“Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeonholes.”
Alfred Kinsey
Thanks Clint! All round good entry. Jason Mraz is certainly very talented and a wonderful entertainer!! Take care with appreciation!
Thriver
Heyas Clint, it's always good when you are a part of the start of something big(?) and you can carry those memories around with you, even dining out on a few juicy titbits for as long as you can 😉 I've regaled you before about my helping to push start Holly Johnson of FGTH(Franky Goes To Hollywood) fame car after his car battery was flat. They hadn't become stars then, just a bunch of Scousers playing a few local clubs. There were Holly and Paul Rutherford and a couple girls (girls hanging out with gay lads back then were referred to as Fag Hags, Google the expression😲) They had all driven over to Manchester from Liverpool for the early afternoon at Bernards Bar, later named Stuffed Olives, a bar and bistro by day and expanded into a club known under various names....Heroes, Stuffed Olives, Precinct 13 The 3 straight other guys of FGTH in those days tended not to go with Holly and Paul to the 🌈 places. I guess Holly won't have any recollection of that afternoon 😎 and I'll be discreet why they were in Manchester that day too. TBH 🌈 life was a lot more fun back then too, more underground, edgy, you needed to be in the know. You had Pier13(?) in SF, we had the Dunlop deserted factory. Now it's all in the open, it's sanitised, nothing is a mystery any more. Well enough ramblings, Cheers DougT 🇫🇴 🇬🇧