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Andrew Oliver
Andrew Oliver is a pianist and composer from Portland, Oregon. He started piano at the age of 3, and grew up playing classical piano and cello, before delving into the realm of jazz and improvised music while in high school, when he began studying with Portland pianist Randy Porter, his most influential teacher. He lived in New Orleans from 2002 until 2005, where he studied jazz at Loyola University and performed as both a bandleader and sideman. After evacuating from Hurricaine Katrina in the summer of 2005, he returned to Portland and resumed his studies at Portland State University, where graduated in June 2007 with a B.M. in Jazz Performance and a B.A. in French.
In addition to studying with Randy Porter since 1999, he has also studied piano with Matt Lemmler, Michael Pellera, and Darrell Grant and composition with Charley Gray. He was a member of the Portland Youth Jazz Orchestra in its pilot year (2002), and has performed with numerous musicians in New Orleans, Portland, and elsewhere, including Glen Moore, Maurice Brown, Rob Scheps, Irvin Mayfield, Devin Phillips, Alan Jones, and many others.
He has performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Portland Jazz Festival, and at folk festivals in France, Italy, Poland, and Bulgaria as director of the band for the New Orleans-based Komenka Ethnic Dance and Music Ensemble. In 2007, he toured West and Central Africa for a month performing and teaching workshops as pianist for Devin Phillips and New Orleans Straight Ahead. The group was selected as one of ten jazz bands to travel the world as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. under the State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad” program. In 2009, he received a generous scholarship to attend the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music in Banff, Canada, where he worked with many notable faculty including Dave Douglas, Don Byron, Joshua Redman, and Tony Malaby, and made connections with fellow musicians from around the world.
He is currently active in many varied projects. His primary group, the Andrew Oliver Sextet, performs original creative music drawing on jazz, world music, and rock influences. The sextet released an album in 2008 on Diatic Records and will be recording its second album in the Summer of 2009. He composes for and co-directs the Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble, which he co-founded in 2007 as a forum for jazz composers in Portland to present new large-group works, and which premiered over 20 new compositions in its first year.
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Seattle Times - Andrew Oliver Kora Band: A Fresh, Old Sound Breaks New Ground
Source:
Seattle Jazz Scene
CD Release Party at The Jewelbox Theater (Rendevouz Restaurant & Bar, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle; $12 (206-441-5823 or jewelboxtheater.com). Why are there no new musical instruments? It’s as if the electric guitar was the ultimate innovation, the last nail in the coffin of music’s social supremacy. If fresh organic sounds are an endangered species, then Kane Mathis is Greenpeace. Mathis plays the kora, a 21-stringed West African harplike instrument made from a gourd wrapped in cow skin — and the ...
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New Release from Diatic Records: "Otis Stomp" by Andrew Oliver Sextet
Source:
All About Jazz
Diatic Records Presents the new album by the Andrew Oliver Sextet, Otis Stomp." Led by Andrew Oliver, current pianist for Devin Phillips' group New Orleans Straight Ahead and co-director of the Portland Jazz Composers' Ensemble, Andrew has recently returned from a tour in Africa with Devin sponsored by the U.S. State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center. The Andrew Oliver Sextet attempts to explore a new avenue in modern jazz, performing original compositions by its members which draw on jazz, ...
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