The self-titled 2025 debut release by the explorative all-percussion ensemble Onilu stunned listeners with an array of vibrant colors, rich textures and stylistic diversity unexpected from a trio composed entirely of percussionists.
All About Jazz hailed the album for its “music of vibrant colors with a jazz sensibility at its heart… weaving together a fresh, cross-cultural and modern tapestry.” Magnet magazine called the members of Onilu, “lifetime students of the drums, sufficiently steeped in the instrument’s lore to know how to make music that is complete and completing using only things that you strike and stroke… this music is purposeful and true.” And The Free Jazz Collective lauded the album as a “consistently declarative work, emotionally open, sonically generous, three masters of different generations celebrating a shared musical passion.”
ON ITS UPCOMING SOPHOMORE RELEASE, Jakutá’s Dance, Onilu has crafted a welcome follow-up that is even more expansive in vision, palette and membership. Returning from the initial outing are veteran Philadelphia-based percussionist Kevin Diehl and legendary drummer Joe Chambers; joining them in this revamped quartet line-up are fellow Philadelphia favorite Craig McIver and the Panama-born Daniel Villarreal, a longtime contributor to the fertile Chicago jazz scene who now also makes his home in the City of Brotherly Love. Between them they explore the spectrum of percussion instruments, from a global variety of drums to tuned instruments including piano, vibraphone and marimba, to electronic textures and atmospherics.
Together as Onilu, these four artists refuse to be limited by the expectations that come with the term “percussionist.” Along with a staggering arsenal of instruments spanning multiple cultures and traditions, they each contribute a sweeping imagination unshackled by considerations of genre, style or boundary. In the music of Onilu coexist ancient and future, sacred and profane, composition and improvisation, tradition and experiment.
BACKLINE INSTRUMENTS FOR PRESENTERS
(1) vibraphone, (1) marimba (2) drum kits w hardware (1) partial drum kit -kick, snare, floor tom (no cymbal hardware required for this partial)
Stereo DI
ONILU, THE DEBUT RECORD, February 2025:
The self-titled debut album was recorded in January of 2023. It was released world-wide by the Eremite label on February 7, 2025. It featured Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl and Chad Taylor.
Order the Onilu LP here: https://eremite.com/album/mte-82
Order and download the Onilu digital tracks here: https://eremiterecords.bandcamp.com/album/onilu
a shared devotion to drumming as a cultural, spiritual and historical phenomenon. They wear that reverence; a house wide open to the sun and wind on a breezy spring day. – Bill Meyer, magnetmagazine.com
emotionally open, sonically generous, three masters of different generations celebrating a shared musical passion. – Stuart Broomer, freejazzblog.org
What a wonderfully uplifting, fresh and enjoyable recording this is. I’ve not come across anything quite like it. – Glenn Klimpton, klofmag.com
RECORDING CREDITS:
Joe Chambers – vibraphone, marimba, drum kit, congas, assorted percussion
Chad Taylor – vibraphone, marimba, mbira, tympani, drum kit, piano, clay drums tongue drum
Kevin Diehl – drum kit, Sensory Percussion electro-acoustic drum system, bata drums, cajon, shekere, assorted percussion
VIDEOS (RECORDED AT THE 2023 STUDIO SESSION)
Onilu – Estuary Stew
Onilu – Mainz
Onilu – Same Shame
Onilu – Grasta Maol
Video Vision realization by John Hubbard with Nancy Priff, Jamie Hubbard, Erik Berenak. AV Recorded at Rittenhouse Soundworks.