Some artists are born more talented and some have to work more to get where they want to be. And there are those who have to do very little to get where most never do. Such an extraordinary talent, the prodigy of the decade is Jacob Collier. The young musician from London (born 1994) attracted a worldwide following, accumulating tens of millions of views across multiple social media platforms, when in 2012 his homemade split-screen video covers of popular songs, such as Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" became viral.
Born to a pair of classical violinists and music educators, Collier was singing and performing from childhood. He first made waves when the homemade video of his stunning a cappella version of “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory became viral on YouTube, introducing the world to his four and a half octave vocal range and astonishing approach to harmony, overdubbing his voice over a dozen times to create a densely rich musical tapestry. Collier's style blends elements of jazz, a cappella, groove, folk, electronic music, classical music, gospel, soul and improvisation, and often features the extreme use of reharmonization. His amazing abilities drew the attention of the legendary musician and music impresario Quincy Jones, who immediately took interest in the young artist and has since become his mentor. Collier signed for Jones’ management company and began working on his one-man, audio-visual live performance vehicle, designed and built at MIT in Boston. The vehicle allows Collier to seamlessly layer the multiple instruments that surround him on stage and instantly harmonize his own voice, while integrated live video presents an ingenious visual account of what the audience hears.
In late 2015, Collier began working on his debut album “In My Room.” The album was recorded and mixed in a three-month period in his family home in London. It was mastered by Bernie Grundman and released on 1 July 2016 through the independent record label Membran Entertainment Group. In February 2017, Collier was awarded two Grammys for his arrangements of "Flintstones" and "You And I", both from the album. “In My Room” hit the number one spot on the iTunes jazz chart in 23 countries and debuted at #1 on the Contemporary Jazz Album chart in Billboard, who declared, “Jacob Collier is blowing minds.”
For the end, here is what Collier said about recording his first split-screen video for “Pure Imagination” and the reactions after that: “That was just the craziest 48 hours. I just pressed ‘go’ and then went to sleep. When I woke up I had 200 messages in my inbox, and it just exploded exponentially. At two o’clock that afternoon Peter Erskine sent me a message saying ‘I love your stuff’, Liane Carroll got in touch, so did Jonathan Kreisberg, Will Vinson all these incredible people I’ve admired for a long time – and then to top it all that evening I’d just had supper and went to check it again – and looked in my email and there was a message from Pat Metheny. I thought it was a mate having a laugh, but it was all written in lowercase and he said ‘Hi Jacob, I really love ‘Pure Imagination’, you’ve really taken it up a notch and I’m a huge fan… it would be great to great to meet you in New York sometime.’ I just sprinted up the road and back after that! It was crazy but so gratifying.”
