Jacob Collier

Jacob Collier
Jacob Collier at the Moers Festival 2016.
Background information
Birth name	Jacob Moriarty
Born	(1994-08-02) 2 August 1994 North London, England
Origin	North London
Genres	Jazz funk a capella neo soul alternative soul
Occupation(s)	Musician arranger composer singer multi-instrumentalist producer
Instruments	Vocals Piano Double Bass Bass Guitar Harmonizer Melodica Drums Tenor Guitar Mandolin Guitar Dulcimer Bouzouki Ukulele
Years active	2011–present
Labels	Membran Entertainment Group
Website	jacobcollier.co.uk

Jacob Collier (born 2 August 1994) is a singer, arranger, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in London, England. In 2012, his homemade 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. Since then, he has attracted a worldwide following, accumulating tens of millions of views across multiple social media platforms. Collier's style fuses elements of jazz, a cappella, groove, folk, electronic music, classical music, gospel, soul and improvisation, and often features extreme use of reharmonisation. 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 MIT in Boston.^[1] On 1 July 2016, Collier released his debut album, In My Room, which was recorded, arranged, performed and produced entirely by Collier in his home in London. In February 2017, Collier was awarded two Grammys for his arrangements of "Flintstones" and "You And I", both from the album.

Life and career

Collier grew up in North London, England with his parents and two younger sisters.^[2] Music has always been a way of life for Collier and his family. His mother, Susan Collier, is a music teacher, violinist, and conductor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.^[3] Collier's grandfather, Derek Collier (Susan's father), was a violinist who also taught at the Royal Academy of Music and performed with orchestras around the world. Regarding the role music played within his family, Collier says, "[my sisters] are amazing, we sing Bach chorales together as family – it's just so much fun."^[2] Collier is of part Chinese descent, through his maternal grandmother, Lila Wong.^[4]

Collier was also a child actor in film^[5] under the name Jacob Moriarty. In 2004 he portrayed Tiny Tim in Arthur Allan Seidelman's A Christmas Carol (The Movie). At the same time, young Collier was also immersing himself in classical music, gaining performing experience as a treble singer performing 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.^[2] Of Britten's harmonic language, Collier says, "my mind was shattered outwards."^[2] Collier received the ABRSM Gold Medal for the highest mark in the country for his grade eight singing result in 2008.^[6]

Collier is a self-declared autodidact. He began uploading homemade, multi-instrumental content to YouTube in 2011, releasing, among others, vocal arrangements of Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely", "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.^[2] who flew Collier out to the Montreux Jazz Festival where he met with him and 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 developed and constructed a new multimedia live experience.^[7]

Jacob Collier's Live Solo Show

In 2015, alongside Louis Mustill and William Young of Artists and Engineers, Collier's debut live solo show was completed and began touring Europe and the US.^[8] The performance involves multi-media by pairing multi-instrumental loops with real-time 3D capture video loops in order to create a musical and visual experience and a vocal harmonizer Collier designed and created with Bloomberg.^[8] The first performance of this show was held at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.^[1] Collier later opened with this show for Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea at the 2015 Montreux Jazz Festival.^[9]

2015-present: In My Room, World Tour, and #IHarmU

In July 2015, Beats by Dr. Dre reached out to Collier to provide the music for the '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 was aired on national television before each England match.^[10]

In late 2015, Collier began working on his debut album In My Room, after performing with WDR Big Band in a concert in Cologne, Germany.^[11][12] He arranged, recorded and produced the album entirely on his own, playing every instrument, in addition to writing eight of the eleven songs. The album was recorded and mixed in one three-month period^[13] in the music room of his family home in London, England, hence the title.^[14] It was mastered by Bernie Grundman,^[15] and released on 1 July 2016 through the independent record label Membran Entertainment Group. Following the release, Collier has embarked on a world tour with his one-man show including the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival.^[16]

In anticipation of the release of In My Room, Collier launched the "#IHarmU" campaign through Patreon, a crowdfunding site for content creators, where $100 patrons sent him 15-second video clips of melodies, which he harmonized with multiple vocal parts with his well-known multi-screen layout, and uploaded to his social media platforms.^[17][18] Patrons include British jazz artist Jamie Cullum, Ben Folds, Herbie Hancock, and Kevin Olusola of the a cappella group Pentatonix, the latter for whom he arranged "White Christmas" 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 ^[19]. Then, on August 22, 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, under the baton of Jules Buckley, amongst other songs.^[20][21] In December 2016, Collier collaborated with 150 students at MIT in a concert entitled "Imagination Off the Charts".^[22]

In February 2017, Collier won two Grammys.^[23][24] One month later he made his US TV debut at Tavis Smiley Show performing a rendition of his Grammy-Award-winning arrangement of 'You And I' with jazz-gospel a cappella legends, Take 6.^[25] In 2017, Collier also recomposed Samsung's signature ringtone, "Over The Horizon", for the new Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+,^[26] and was co-producer on two songs from Becca Stevens album, Regina.^[27] Collier also helped score DreamWorks’ 2017 film, The Boss Baby, with composer Hans Zimmer.^[28] The following month, Collier performed with Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.^[29] In April, Collier was also a guest on the daily weekday talk show Harry,^[30][31] and a speaker at the annual TED conference in Vancouver, Canada.^[32]

Collier is currently touring internationally with his One-Man-Show,^[33][34] interrupted by two performances with big band and orchestras in July. On July 9, he and Cory Henry performed again with Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley at North Sea Jazz Festival.^[35] On July 16 he and Jules Buckley were part of a concert at Stuttgart Jazzopen with Quincy Jones, George Benson, Dee Dee Bridgewater, SWR Bigband and Stuttgarter Kammerorchester.^[36]

Discography

• In My Room (2016)

Awards and nominations

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References