ANDREW OLIVER SEXTET: Andrew Oliver, piano and composition;
Dan Duval, guitar and composition;
Mary Sue Tobin, soprano and alto saxophone and clarinet;
Willie Matheis, tenor saxophone;
Eric Gruber, bass;
Kevin Van Geem, drums and composition.
Andrew Oliver is a pianist and composer from Portland, Oregon. He also plays cello, trumpet, and drums. He grew up playing classical piano and cello, and eventually switched to jazz at the beginning of high school, when he began taking lessons from 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. He spent the fall of 2006 studing and playing music in Angers, France.
In addition to studying with Randy Porter since 1999, he has also studied with Matt Lemmler, Michael Pellera, and Darrell Grant. He was a member of the Portland Youth Jazz Orchestra in its pilot year (2002), and has performed with numerous musicians in New Orleans and Portland, including Glen Moore, Maurice Brown, Dick Titterington, Rob Scheps, Irvin Mayfield, Devin Phillips, and 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 a member and director of the band for the New Orleans-based Komenka Ethnic Dance and Music Ensemble.
He is currently active in several groups: he leads a sextet playing his original compositions and arrangements as well as writing for and co-directing the Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble, a big band promoting new music by Portland’s jazz composers. He also arranges for and occasionaly conducts Devin Phillips’ Oregon Jazz Orchestra. He is a member of Devin Phillips’ group New Orleans Straight Ahead, which released its first album in 2006, and with which he recently toured West and Central Africa performing and teaching workshops in the fall of 2007 as a cultural ambassador under the auspices of the State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
He also plays in and composes for Sound for the Organization of Society, a New Orleans-based large ensemble which released its first record in the spring of 2007, and he performs on trumpet with the Krebsic Orkestar, an 11-piece brass band playing Serbian gypsy music. **The new album "Otis Stomp" by the Andrew Oliver Sextet is now available from Diatic Records: http://www.diaticrecords.com/store.php **
Yeah man, anytime you want to play let me know. I'd totally be into some gigs. Is the wine bar you speak of close to the Alameda Brewery? I think I know the place. Thanks for the nice comments, I really enjoyed listening to you and your band the other night. Cool stuff.
hey man, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. lets do the gig! have you talked to jason? whatabout if we did it in august? july might me kinda tough....and slow....i think we might get more of a buzz if we did it later on in august.lets talk about diz.
hope land of the port is doing fine.
Yea man, that was good chillin a bit and I'm really looking forward to the whole project. I'm recording my quartet cd this monday and tuesday and after that I would be very much into getting a session... thursday maybe or next week.
-C
Hey man,
Welcome back to the free world. I would love to get another session. I get back from holiday travels on the 2nd. Maybe we could do it on sunday or monday after that? Let me know.
Sweet!
-C
Okay I keep missing you on msn so here it is :
Merry Christmas Andrew.
I miss you guys, I wanna move out my country and meet you over there...
Take Care
You guys all sounded great a few weeks back at the Blue Monk! I really dig your compositions. Great player, too.
Glad you found me in here..
Hope we can play together sometime~
