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Hometown: Seattle, WA
Genre: Jazz
Andrew Oliver is a pianist and composer from Portland, Oregon. He grew up playing classical music but switched to jazz at the beginning of high school, when he began taking lessons from Randy Porter. He lived in New Orleans from 2002 until 2005. After evacuating from Hurricane Katrina in the summer of 2005, he returned to Portland and finished his studies in music and French at Portland State University. He has studied with Matt Lemmler, Michael Pellera, and Darrell Grant, and performed with many musicians in New Orleans and Portland including Devin Phillips, Irvin Mayfield, and Glen Moore. He is currently active in many groups throughout the Northwest.
“But the Andrew Oliver Kora band meshes what the two musics love most—from upbeat, spiraling guitar plucks to that shuffling dance backbeat—to make a gorgeous, moving record with with Just 4 U.”
Casey Jarman - Willamette Week
“In the tradition of [Don] Cherry, Oliver, who either wrote or arranged most of the tunes, blends the swing and intellect of American jazz with the divine poetry of West African music.”
Tom D'Antoni - The Oregonian
“Modest but mesmerizing, it’s as novel and agreeable a sound as you’ve never heard.”
Jonathan Zwickel - Seattle Times
“All this helps make Just 4 U one of the better world-music releases to come out of the Northwest all year.”
Jonathan Cunningham - Seattle Weekly
