Maurice Oliver

President/Producer/Artist, Electronfarm Records Ltd.

Maurice was born in Harlem, New York City. It is said his appreciation of music began with the Apollo Theatre, where his mother would often catch a matinee while still pregnant with him. He grew up on Staten Island in a musical neighborhood where inspiration was everywhere. There were the sounds of conga drums in the parks in summer and gospel music at church on Sundays. He learned to love jazz from his dad, Elliot. Through junior high and high school Maurice played drums and orchestral percussion and began to perform with professional musicians. For many years he lead rock, blues and jazz bands, performing around the East Coast in clubs, festivals & cultural events. At The Julliard School of Music In Manhattan Maurice studied orchestral percussion, majoring in tympani. At The New School of Social Research he studied with such great artists as Oliver Lake, Sam Rivers, Karl Berger and Jimmy Guiffre. He studied electronic composition with John Watts, founder of The Composers Theatre in NYC. In the 1980's Maurice received grants from the New York State Council for the Arts, and The New York Urban League, as well as The Composer's Award and the New York City Council for the Arts Grant for percussion workshops in public schools. Living in Amsterdam for a few years provided Maurice an opportunity to perform and write music in other genres and collaborate with musicians from around the world. He learned to play West African drums, such as talking drum, djembe and baliphone with master drummer Babatundi Olatunji, and studied Afro-Brazilian rhythms with Airto, Ciro Baptista and Nana Vasconcelos on traditional instruments such as the quica, ago go, caxixi and berimbau. Jo Papo Dadiego brought expertise in Afro-Cuban music as well. Maurice founded the band, Rhythm Method, with his brother Steve. The band featured live percussion, keyboards and guitar and performed in such renowned venues as the Melkweg/Milky Way in Amsterdam and Exit and Tressor in Berlin. Rhythm Method was one of the first American bands to perform live at the Love Parade in Berlin. In New York City the band performed regularly at The Limelight, The Shelter, The Ritz and The Roxy. Under Maurice's leadership, Rhythm Method released "The Future EP" on Adrenalin Records in 1993. In 1996, the album "Dream Wanderers" was released with C&S Records. He wrote the song, "But You Must" for the Killing Zoë soundtrack, Milan Records/BMG. Their most acclaimed song, "Goa Season of the Monsoon" was included on the compilations, "United State of Ambience" on Moonshine Records and Trance Masters 2 on Vision Sound Carrier Records. The advent of low-cost home computers and music software has given Maurice his own path to creative freedom and he can now realize an entire musical composition on his own. And it is from all the varied cultural traditions he has studied that Maurice Oliver composes his unique style of world rhythms, electronica and jazz. He is President of Electronfarm Records, a multi-media company creating, music CD’s, and digital downloads. Video for artists, as well as television, and film scoring, and sound design. Presently living in the Chicago area He has assembled a “Live” band to expand upon the concepts explored in the studio. Maurice has been named to the advisory board of the global education organization Future Kids 2020 “Chill Factor-5, the genesis of reason meeting inspiration through music, firmly grasping the technological and global mind wave. Music is music, is music, genres are labels. Art defies labels!”