onilu is an all-percussionist trio utilizing the extensive family of drummed & tuned percussion instruments to deliver beautifully composed, arranged & executed small ensemble music. nothing about this all-percussion band feels rarified, or missing anything musical. to the contrary, onilu create a soundworld where nothing is missing, & everything is musical —defying the stereotype of modern percussion ensembles as esoteric or academic pursuits, reaffirming the powerful social & sacred musics made in african diasporic communities & across cultures by drum & percussion groups since the beginning of human time. the members of onilu are: kevin diehl, leader of the enduring philadelphia-based afro-cuban yoruba free-jazz ensemble sonic liberation front; chad taylor, artistic director of jazz studies at the university of pittsburgh & esteemed drummer of long standing in many scenes. highlights of taylor's recent history include his work with james brandon lewis, jaimie branch, marc ribot, rob mazurek, & with joshua abrams in the duo -mind maintenance-. taylor was part of the community of young chicago-based musicians organized around fred anderson’s velvet lounge in the 1990s that included abrams, nicole mitchell, jeff parker, matana roberts, among others; living legend joe chambers began his illustrious career as the drummer on now-canonical blue note recordings by andrew hill, bobby hutcherson, sam rivers, wayne shorter & mccoy tyner. a 1970 founding member of max roach’s pathbreaking percussion ensemble m’boom, chambers continues to record percussion-centered music as a leader for blue note records.

after nearly 3 decades working with such historic drummers as denis charles, walter perkins, sunny murray, hamid drake, milford graves, susie ibarra, charles bobo shaw, & han bennink, it's eremite records joy & honor to give the drummers not some, but ALL the spotlight.

from dana hall’s liner notes: "These three artists are master musicians and the music they present here is masterfully conceived. The drum, and its entire global family of membranophones, shakers, and idiophones, are conduits for their collective creative voice. In addition to drummers, they are also composers, and their works here represent a synthesis of ideas, concepts, and their individual dialectics on the language and syntax found in much of African and African Diasporic musics. A music that uses call and response. One that honors the past while looking forward to the future. A music that is principally concerned with feeling, mood, and storytelling. One that eschews frivolity and the baroque. A music that swings and grooves. I found myself dancing to this recording. Trust me, you, too, will find yourself rightfully and unapologetically dancing to this recording."

release date 2025-02-07. 1st eremite edition of 999 copies pressed on premium audiophile-quality 140 gram vinyl at fidelity record pressing, from kevin gray/cohearent audio lacquers. recorded by michael richelle, philadelphia. mastered by joe lizzi, queens, NY. hand screen-printed insert by alan sherry, siwa studios, northern new mexico. 1st 175 direct order copies include eremite’s signature hand screen-printed retro-audiophile inner-sleeves.

"The now venerable Eremite does not release music at random. Known for the services it started rendering to the free jazz scene in the mid ’90s, the label has in recent years escaped easy labeling, even if its roots are still in evidence. This is also true of the thematic Onilu, an eight-track, three-drummer project initiated by Philadelphian Kevin Diehl. Diehl is among the few musicians still claiming (non-bankable) drum great Sunny Murray as a mentor, but the album doesn’t sound anything like the great avant garde waves that washed upon 1960s shores. The senior member of the Onilu trio is Joe Chambers, whose drumming (and vibraphone playing) started appearing on classic Blue Note albums in the mid ’60s; he is also a surviving member of Max Roach’s all-percussion group M’Boom, a forebear that fortifies the groundwork of Onilu. As a young musician, Diehl witnessed the NYC loft scene of the following decade, and the ensemble’s youngest member, Chad Taylor, is a founder of the quarter-century-old Chicago Underground collective. What strikes the listener first is the openness of the trio’s sound. Unlike many historical (and often short-lived) percussion-only projects, there is no frantic attempt at filling the space left open by the absence of traditional ensemble members. Every sound is precisely struck and precisely situated. The musicians sift through a large variety of percussion instruments— trap sets, vibraphone, marimba, various Afro-Cuban percussions, thumb piano—but in an organized and most often melodic manner. The materiality of the percussion—metals, woods, skins—beautifully shines through on this excellent studio recording (instrument details are also usefully provided). Although the drummers could obviously play as fast as their predecessors often opted to do on percussion-centric recordings, an unusual calmness permeates the music. Soon, the album turns into an uncanny stillness above which the grooves and repeating patterns seem to rise and float, not in a haze of sound but with great clarity. Except for a Hutcherson cut and a tune included on a 1970s Nonesuch Explorer LP, the album’s numbers are all originals. The short forms used are a strong point of this session: they are more reminiscent of the relaxed freedom found in some modern electronic music than of traditional jazz forms. The record’s longest track, “A Meta Onilu” (almost seven-and-a-half minutes), takes things one step further, showing development possibilities for the project. Onilu stimulatingly shows what can be done today, in terms of autonomous, small ensemble percussion music." -Pierre Crépon, New York City Jazz Record

“'Summit meeting” is a term that has all but fallen out of use in music commentary, but it is applicable to the eponymous debut of Onilu, the trio of Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl, and Chad Taylor. (Onilu is Yoruba for drummer.) For over a half-century, Chambers has brought an incisive compositional sensibility to percussion-centric music; and while most of the eight compositions are credited to Sonic Liberation Force leader Diehl and/or the nearly ubiquitous Taylor, Chambers’ gravity centers the proceedings. While there is abundant energy and exhilaration throughout the album, there is also a current of palpable solemnity that, arguably, can best be mustered in tandem with an esteemed elder like Chambers.
There is a gentle seesawing between pieces rooted in traditional materials like “Nyamaropa,” a piece that first appeared on the Nonesuch Explorer classic now titled Zimbabwe: The Soul of Mbira – Traditions of the Shona People, and recently composed works like Taylor’s buoyant “Mainz,” a piece which Jeff Parker has recorded two notable contrasting versions. Even when the intensity of the material approaches a boil, as on “A Meta Onilu” when all three man a drum kit, each stroke seems prescribed by ancient protocol. With each listening, not only do the layers in every piece vibrate more vividly, but each piece becomes more entwined with the others.
Onilu is unassumingly profound. It does not shout from the ramparts, nor does it shake its fist at the oppressors. It relays a message that has been passed down through centuries, despite it being waylaid by the middle passage and repressed through enslavement and its aftermath. It is a message of determination and resolve and ultimate conviviality. It is a recording that meets the current moment."
–Bill Shoemaker, pointofdeparture

"In a time when it’s hard to know just who and what to believe, Onilu shows how easy it can be to speak the truth. Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl and Chad Taylor named their album (and, subsequently, their project) after the Yoruba word for “drum,” and that’s exactly what you get. All three of them are 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.
Diehl, who has also been the leader of the Philadelphian Sonic Liberation Front for more than two decades, instigated this project. He and Chad Taylor—a bandleader, enduring associate of Rob Mazurek and the artistic director of University of Pittsburgh’s jazz-studies program—have known each other since the tail end of the last century. They decided to transition from colleagues to collaborators in order to merge their shared interest in the intersection of improvised music and African folk forms.
The group’s third member, Joe Chambers, has the longest CV by far. He was a valued player and composer on some of the Blue Note label’s greatest recordings in the 1960s and a founding member of M’Boom, Max Roach’s all-percussion ensemble, in the 1970s. Chambers has carried on teaching, playing and recording to the present time. Among his students was Taylor, who took private lessons from him in the mid-1990s.
That might sound like a lot of personal history, and the trio compounds it with a shared devotion to drumming as a cultural, spiritual and historical phenomenon. But they wear that reverence; Onilu is as stuffy as a house wide open to the sun and wind on a breezy spring day. The music is never cluttered. Chambers often takes the lead on vibraphone, which he uses to articulate graceful, unfussy melodies that’ll stick in your head as surely as the other two musicians will compel you to swivel your hips with a battery of additional drums.
On “Same Shame,” Taylor’s tympani ground the music so deeply that you’ll feel the mud between your toes; on “Grasta Maol,” Diehl’s Batá drums impart an extra throb that’ll unkink your spine. And when they lock in on three kits for “A Meta Onilu,” their funk is simultaneously undeniable and reserved, summoning solemnity in the midst of celebration. No lies—this music is purposeful and true."
-Bill Meyer, Magnet