In a category dominated by people like Beyoncé, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, Jacob Collier is undoubtedly the least famous musician nominated for the album of the year in the 67 Awards Grammy on Sunday. However, the English singer, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist is actually a family contender for the Grammys Bad “Djesse Vol. Vol. 3”, which competed against LPs by Post Malone, Dua Lipa and Coldplay in the 63 Grammys. (Taylor Swift ended up winning that year with “folklore”).
With appearances of a wide variety of guests, including Brandi Carlile, Michael McDonald, Anoushka Shankar, Shawn Mendes, Kirk Franklin and John Mayer, the extensive but intricately detailed “Djesse Vol. Electronics of 4” layers and instruments played by hand, and that combines R&B, jazz, people and even a little death metal; The album starter, “100,000 Voices”, presents recordings that many members of the audience at Collier concerts, where he directs the crowd as a giant choir.
In addition to the album of the year, Collier, 30, is ready for two more grammys in Sunday's show: Global Music Performance for “A Rock Subwhere” and arrangement, for an interpretation of “Bridge Over Impublic Water” with John Legend and Tori Kelly. Collier discussed the album and his relations with Joni Mitchell and the late Quincy Jones on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles.
You said that “Djesse Vol. 4” is the last installment of a series of four album. Did you always know what the end would be?
I did it, actually. I finished “In My Room”, which is the first album I did, as a completely lonely mission: recorded, mixed, everything alone. Then, after that, I was craving collaboration. I wanted to make four different rooms, each dictated by a different sonic environment. The first was like an orchestral record, very large and broad and explosive. Volume 2 was more folky and singer-composition, with a smaller acoustic space than the first. Volume 3, which was Quarantine's album, it was almost no space at all. It was what happens in the dark and strange star field of your brain when they simply collide things together.
And vol. 4?
For a long time I didn't know what it was. But touring the vol. 3, what I fell in love was the audience. What I recognized in my fascination is that it felt the same in the first days, except that now the voice that was most interested was mass voice instead of mine.
Among the nominees for the album of the year, yours seems to share more with “New Blue Sun”, the experimental jazz LP of André 3000. But he has talked about the value of the mind of a beginner on his trip as a flute player, while I don't hear much ingenuity in your music.
I think that part of the nature of a fourth album of Four is that it will be a bit a work for what I have learned in the last 10 years of making music. It is different from “in my room”, which was naivety: I have never done this before. What happens when you make an album? Let's find out. But this is not a naive record. I would not say that will come out of nowhere.
Have you heard André's album?
Yes. I think the value of that record, in a fun way, is not a musical value. And I imagine it would be fine with that. All songs have these 10 words titles, as an entry into the newspaper. I refresh the nonconformist that is the format of the registration. I don't want to make music, but I want to think differently in my life. I wonder how you will feel about the record in 20 years. I am curious to know for what he has learned from him. I am also curious to know who voted for it. It is such a dear and known figure, but in terms of what the Grammys represent, which is always a bit difficult to say, I wonder where you feel in that. I am glad to be there, because it is different from any other album in the category. It is very “F— You” in a sense. I love him for that.
I saw you play piano with Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl last year. How did you become part of Joni Jam?
I met Brandi Carlile in 2021, since he was in the process of reviving Joni's magic. Joni had been alone at home, very, very fragile, and Brandi, who is only incredible human, had this vision of the Joni Jams, where people come to Joni's house and sing songs by Joni. So I went to Joni's house and I was absolutely impressed to be there. The wall with sweets of the 70s, the paintings on the doors, was incredible as a big fan of Joni. I did that and I thought, well, that was unique. I was imagining that Joni was in decline. But it has gone force in force. Then, Brandi called me at the beginning of last year and said: “Look, Joni is going to sing in the Grammys, are you going to be close?” We played “both sides now” in the program, which later became the Joni Jam in the Hollywood Bowl.
Some things about the musicality of Joni have deteriorated: it no longer touches a lot of guitar, and his voice is a lower eighth than it was. But his phrasing is intact, and that is when you know it is really a jazzer and that he has hung with shorter Wayne. Every time you make a song, she will sing a little early or a little late or a little elongated. And I think once he realized that I was also one of those people, we had a little click. It was really surprising to grant that freedom, because many people in that band were playing their parts religiously. And if they had not been in the band, he would have collapsed. You can't have Jonis alone in the band, you know? I had the delight to be brought to decorate, to play, to almost make fun of it in the sand of righteous. I will never forget it.
Jacob Collier in Los Angeles.
(Annie Noelker/for The Times)
The list established for the bowl show was completely crazy.
Crazy! The first half were only saying: “Joni, what do you want to do?” She said: “I want to play the deepest cuts.” And then the second half was more of the known songs. She is at a point in her career where I could say easily: “I'm going to put an arc on this, and you will love it.” But she is still pushing.
Your mentor Quincy Jones He died last year. Do you think something died with him? Something he did or defended from what we will not see again?
The greatest gift I received from him was to see how I treated people. Do not create that type of legacy without understanding how to reach people's souls and hearts. I think we will not see a person with that combination of talent, boldness and humanity. Obviously, he is there in music. But being with him in the world, people appeared and said: “Quincy, you have done this and this and this”, and always had a way to disarm them: cut the flow of adulation and turn it into a human interaction.
Do you have a favorite song or album?
One of the first songs I learned from Quincy is a song called “Razzamatazz”, by “The Disee”. Patti Austin sings it. It is a perfect musical piece, so funky and very funny.
“Only once“It is the one for me of” the guy. “What happens to the end –
Where a tone goes up: [sings] “Find a way to stay together …” It's unreal. What happens with Quincy is that he understood the harmonious context of things like that because he had done what was fixed. The song could have been easily in C-Mojor, but no, it must rise. He was the best.
What is your most robust musical position?
I can be a great pilot with tuning. I have explored microtonality, so, on the one hand, it is as if everything was in tune, right? But sometimes I listen to a brass sextet or a string quartet play in a piece of classical music perfectly in tune with the piano, and I say: “That is a shame, because the piano itself is not in tune.”
Now that the “Djesse” project is complete, what will be your next album?
I don't know yet. It is the first time that I have not known for seven years, that is an emotion for me. Many of the things I have built and done in the past have been great, “100,000 voices” as the greatest example. Now that I have done that, I think my brain longs for smaller containers. What happens if I made a album alone in piano or simply on guitar?
If it can't be you, who would like to see Win Album of the Year?
I think Beyoncé's record is brave, and I congratulate people for that. She couldn't have made that album, or could have done something simpler. I think he was shameless, and I think he came from a place to really know what he wanted to say and really say it. So I would be quite excited to lose with Beyoncé.
