Jacob Collier
Jacob Collier is an English musician. His music incorporates elements from many musical genres, and often features extreme use of reharmonisation.
In 2012, his split-screen video covers of popular songs, such as Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing", began to go viral on YouTube. In 2014, Collier signed to Quincy Jones' management company and began working on his one-man, audio-visual live performance vehicle, designed and built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 2016, Collier released his debut album, In My Room, which was self-recorded, -arranged, -performed and -produced in the small back room of his family home in Finchley, north London. In 2017, Collier was awarded Grammy Awards for his arrangements of "Flintstones" and "You And I".
In 2018, Collier began working on Djesse, a four-volume, 50-song album featuring more than two dozen artists and ensembles. The first volume, which features the Metropole Orkest, Djesse Vol. 1, was released in December 2018. The second, Djesse Vol. 2, uses more acoustic instrumentation, and was released in July 2019. In 2020, Collier won Grammy Awards for his arrangements of "All Night Long" from Djesse Vol. 1 and "Moon River" from Djesse Vol. 2, respectively. The third volume, Djesse Vol. 3, which Collier describes as based in electronic sounds, has a release date of 14 August 2020.
Early life
Collier grew up in north London, raised with two younger sisters primarily by his single mother. His mother Susan Collier is a violinist, conductor, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music's Junior Academy. Collier's maternal grandfather, Derek Collier, was a violinist who also taught at the Royal Academy and performed with orchestras around the world. Collier says, "We sing Bach chorales together as family – it's just so much fun." Collier is partly of Chinese descent, through his maternal grandmother, Lila Wong.Collier attended Mill Hill County High School in north London and The Purcell School for Young Musicians in Bushey, Hertfordshire. He briefly studied jazz piano at the Royal Academy.
At age 10 he portrayed Tiny Tim in Arthur Allan Seidelman's A Christmas Carol, credited as Jacob Moriarty. At the same time, Collier was also performing as a treble singer in classical roles such as one of the three boys in Mozart's The Magic Flute and "Miles" in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, the latter of which heavily influenced his usage and understanding of harmony. Of Britten's harmonic language, Collier says, "my mind was shattered outwards." Collier received the ABRSM Gold Medal for the highest mark in the country for his grade eight singing result in 2008.
Career
Collier is a self-declared autodidact. He began uploading homemade, multi-instrumental content to YouTube in 2011, releasing, among others, vocal arrangements of "Pure Imagination", from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and in 2013, a multi-instrumental rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing". His activity caught the attention of Quincy Jones, who flew Collier out to the Montreux Jazz Festival where they met and then met with Herbie Hancock.2014–2015: Quincy Jones, MIT, and ''Live Performance Vehicle''
Around this time, Ben Bloomberg, a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, reached out to Collier regarding the creation and development of musical hardware and software for live performance. Over the following months, he and Collier constructed a multimedia live experience.In 2015, Collier launched a live show, touring Europe and the US. The performance featured a circle of musical instruments, with six simultaneous looping stations capable of simultaneous playback, backed by synced real-time 3D-captured video loops, projected onto a screen behind the instruments, courtesy of Louis Mustill and William Young of Artists and Engineers. Central to the show was a custom-built vocal "Harmonizer" instrument that Collier designed and created with Bloomberg, which enabled Collier to perform multi-voice harmonies in real-time. The show debuted at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London. A few weeks later, Collier opened for Hancock and Chick Corea at the 2015 Montreux Jazz Festival.
2015–2018: ''In My Room'', World Tour, and #IHarmU
In July 2015, Beats by Dr. Dre reached out to Collier to provide the music for 'The Game Starts Here' England Rugby World Cup campaign. Collier recorded an a cappella version of the well-known hymn "Jerusalem" for the commercial, which aired on national television before each England match.In late 2015, Collier began preparing his debut album In My Room, after performing with WDR Big Band in a concert in Cologne, Germany. He arranged, recorded and produced the album himself, playing every instrument. He wrote eight of the eleven tunes. He recorded and mixed the album over three months in the music room of his family home. It was mastered by Bernie Grundman, and released on 1 July 2016 through the independent record label Membran Entertainment Group. Following the release, Collier embarked on a one-man world tour including the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival.
In anticipation of the release, Collier launched the "#IHarmU" campaign through Patreon, where $100 patrons sent him 15-second video clips of melodies, which he harmonised with multiple vocal parts with his well-known multi-screen layout, and uploaded to social media. He demonstrated this creative process in a two-hour live-stream on 31 October 2017. Collier received more than 130 melodies and donations, including from British jazz artist Jamie Cullum, Ben Folds, Herbie Hancock, and Kevin Olusola of the a cappella group Pentatonix,,arranging "White Christmas" for them which appeared on A Pentatonix Christmas, which won a Contemporary A Cappella Society award.
In February 2016, Collier was featured on Snarky Puppy's album, Family Dinner - Volume 2. On 22 August, Collier took part in a Quincy Jones tribute concert at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in London, in which he performed his own orchestral arrangement of his original song "In The Real Early Morning" with the Metropole Orkest, conducted by Jules Buckley, among other songs.
In December 2016, Collier collaborated with 150 students at MIT to produce a 10 December live concert in Kresge Auditorium titled "Imagination Off the Charts", playing alongside orchestral arrangements of his repertoire. This residency was the subject of a documentary film, Imagination Off The Charts, which won a regional Emmy in June 2018.
In February 2017, Collier won two Grammy Awards: Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella for the Stevie Wonder song "You and I" and Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals for a cover of "Flintstones". One month later he made his US television debut on The Tavis Smiley Show performing a rendition of "You And I" with jazz-gospel a cappella group Take 6. That year Collier recomposed Samsung's signature ringtone, "Over The Horizon", for the new Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+, and was co-producer on two songs from Becca Stevens album, Regina. Collier helped score DreamWorks' film The Boss Baby with composer Hans Zimmer. The following month, Collier performed with Zimmer and Pharrell Williams at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. In April, Collier was a guest on the daily weekday talk show Harry, and a speaker at the annual TED conference in Vancouver, Canada.
Collier toured internationally for two and a half years, while hosting masterclasses, and performances with orchestras and big bands around the world, including the Metropole Orkest. On 9 July, he and Cory Henry performed again with the Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley at North Sea Jazz Festival. In December 2017, Collier collaborated with American Pop/R&B singer Tori Kelly to record an a cappella YouTube video cover of the Christmas song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas".
In December 2017, Collier announced that the One-Man-Show's final performance would be in Rome on 18 December 2017. He discussed plans for a second album, to be recorded in 2018.
In July 2018, Collier was one of the surprise guests at Quincy Jones' 85th birthday party celebrations, at the Montreux Jazz Club.
On 19 July, "Jacob Collier and Friends" took the stage for a special concert as part of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Collier performed alongside the Metropole Orkest under conductor Jules Buckley, and invited Take 6, Sam Amidon, Becca Stevens, and Maalem Gnawa musician Hamid El Kasri.
2018–present: ''Djesse''
On 29 October 2018, Collier announced a new four-volume, 50-song musical project, titled Djesse.Following a one-week residency at MIT, Djesse premiered live in Kresge Auditorium on 8 December 2018. The concert featured his performance with the MIT JC Orchestra, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, MIT Concert Choir and Chamber Chorus, Rambax MIT, mother Suzie Collier and other guests from Boston and Los Angeles. Ben Bloomberg, designer of Collier's "Harmonizer" equipment and again a collaborator at MIT, was present in the audience and acknowledged by Collier. The sold-out concert, accompanied by a laser and LED display lightshow spectacular using custom-built lighting apparatus on-stage, was open to the MIT community as well as Boston aficionados.
The first single of the Djesse project, "With The Love in My Heart", was released on 2 November. Two further singles, "Ocean Wide, Canyon Deep" and "All Night Long", were released in late November. Djesse Vol. 1 was released in full on 7 December. The volume features collaborations with Voces8, Laura Mvula, Hamid El Kasri, Take 6, and his mother, Suzie Collier. The Metropole Orkest appeared on every track in addition wity Collier's vocals and various instruments. Collier produced, arranged and orchestrated the music.
In January 2019, Collier began the Djesse World Tour backed by a band, including Portuguese singer and multi-instrumentalist MARO, bassist Robin Mullarkey, and drummer Christian Euman.
The first single from Djesse Vol. 2, "Make Me Cry", was released on 12 April 2019. On 26 April, Collier released the second single from the album, a cover of The Beatles' song "Here Comes The Sun" in collaboration with Dodie Clark. The third Vol. 2 single was released on 13 June, an a cappella arrangement of "Moon River" by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer with over a hundred vocal contributions from family members, mentors, friends, and other collaborators. The fourth and final single from Djesse Vol. 2, "It Don't Matter" featuring vocals of American singer-songwriter JoJo was released on 5 July.
Djesse Vol. 2 was released on 19 July 2019, featuring cover artwork by Astrig Akseralian and further musical collaborations with Lianne La Havas, Oumou Sangaré, Chris Thile, Sam Amidon, Steve Vai, Kathryn Tickell, Becca Stevens and MARO.
Djesse Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 each garnered a nomination for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, for "All Night Long " and "Moon River".
On 29 November 2019, Collier released the first single from Djesse Vol. 3, "Time Alone With You" in collaboration with Daniel Caesar. The video premiered on YouTube on 5 December.
Also in November of that year, Collier appeared on Coldplay's eighth studio album, Everyday Life, providing backing vocals for the tracks "Cry, Cry, Cry", "Everyday Life" and "Church".
Collier was scheduled to continue touring in 2020, before the tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 25 March 2020, Collier released the second single from Djesse Vol. 3, "In My Bones ", premiering the music video on the same day on his YouTube channel. The third Vol. 3 single was released on 14 May; it is entitled "All I Need" and features Ty Dolla Sign and Mahalia. The fourth single from the album, "He Won't Hold You ", was released on 10 July. The fifth and final single from the album, "Running Outta Love ", was released on 31 July.Djesse Vol. 3 is planned for release on 14 August 2020, with Djesse Vol. 4 coming sometime in 2021.