Interview with Oliver Mayman at Chris’ Jazz Cafe
Oliver Mayman photographed by Lora Sherrodd @loralulaphotos
From Ann Arbor, Michigan, and now based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Oliver Mayman is a young and hungry musician showcasing the importance and creativity of the vibraphone. Graduating from Temple University in 2023, Mayman is a jazz-vibraphonist who hosts a jam session every Friday night at Philadelphia’s beloved Chris’ Jazz Cafe. He has written his own technique book on dampening studies for the vibraphone, has a collection of compositions, and teaches students as well. On the second anniversary of his weekly jam sessions, I got to chat with Oliver Mayman about his background in music and where he is now.
This interview took place on April 4, 2025.
What is your upbringing in music? Did you take private lessons, was it a public-school music program, or a family member?
Well, I started on drums. A lot of vibraphonists start on drums. I never did the classical percussion thing ever. I never did any kind of classical thing, really. I started on drums around third or fourth grade, and then I had to pick an instrument for school, so I picked trumpet. I played really bad on trumpet, honestly, and crashed out of that, and then I sort of started playing piano in high school. Someone actually gave me a vibraphone, and that is how I started playing. I was doing a summer workshop sort of thing that was all ages, and there was this old guy who played bass in my group. I was playing with him, and I just kind of mentioned that I'd like to play vibraphone, and he said, “Oh, I have one. If you want it, I will loan it to you.” So, he loaned it to me. For all I know, this guy might be dead now.
Oh my. You didn’t keep in touch?
I can't even contact him. I have no way to contact him.
Wait, so he loaned it to you, and you kept it?
No, it was on an indefinite loan.
Okay, okay.
It was chill. I didn't steal it. But that's the only reason I play that instrument. I went to a public high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called Community High School. That’s where I’m from. It was one of those alternative sort of magnet schools that is still a public school, but it was founded in the 70s by hippies who wanted to make education better. Class sizes are about 20 people, you call your teacher by their first name, and it's an open campus. It is like a very progressive thing. There are no sports, so we had no marching band, and there aren’t enough kids to fill an orchestra, so all they offered were jazz classes. It was a pretty unique experience, and that is how I really got into jazz.
When you say you started on drums, was that playing the drum set at home?
Yes. I mean, I took some lessons at a school. They told me I was really good on the first day, but I think they tell all the kids that. I guarantee they were telling everyone that, but I probably thought I was special at it until like, like freshman year of high school. I think I just decided that I like notes and chords because I don't think I'm a drummer.
Is that what kind of pushed you to start playing the vibraphone?
I think the first time I ever played vibraphone, and I think this is most drummers’ first time too, there were too many drummers, so someone had to play mallets instead. That was the first time I played, and that was right before the guy gave me that vibraphone. That is most likely why I brought it up to him.
Why does music, specifically jazz, matter enough for you to pursue this career for yourself?
I mean, honestly, I think doing music is kind of selfish. I could be doing something better for the world.
Music is good for the world.
Well, it’s a little bit good. There are jobs that are really good, like a doctor, and there are jobs that are bad and like a little bit bad. I'm not an insurance executive. There are a lot of things I'm not. So, I kind of just look at it like, I like it and I'm able to make a living doing it, and it's not hurting the world. I don't know if it's helping the world, but at the very least, it's not hurting the world.
There are a lot of good things about being a musician, I think. You'll always have friends. I feel lucky because I don't think I'd be out here making random friends all the time if I weren't a musician. But since I am, I think I have to. That's part of the job. Not even in a networking way, but if you're playing with someone, you would hopefully like them.
As far as jazz specifically goes, I think it’s partially because my brother went into classical music. I didn't want to do that, but I kind of felt I should do music too. I think really it was just like the school I went to. That's kind of what made jazz like the thing for me, and I like it. I have been getting into other genres recently, though.
When you say getting into other genres, does that mean listening or playing?
Both. It's just completely random stuff. I play piano a lot at these piano bar places where people request Billy Joel. I play Piano Man like 20 times, so people ask for all these different songs. I've been doing this for a couple of years now, but I'm only now starting to learn those songs. Weird stuff too, like Radiohead.
Do you typically only listen to jazz music?
I don't think I listened to a ton of music when I was a child. Probably in middle school, I started listening to the music that I was practicing, and then I started to like music. Honestly, I don't think I liked music that deeply before I started playing it. But I was a child, so it's like my whole thing was developing. I don't think it's that weird, but maybe my parents just didn't play music that much around the house. I've also been out of the loop on pop culture for a while. I've been playing these weddings recently too, for the first time, so I have to play what everyone is listening to. Like Dua Lipa. That has been a sort of wonky experience because I'd never heard any of these songs before, and then in one week, I had to learn like the 100 most popular songs of the past 50 years.
As a mallet player, I like finding music that includes mallets outside of jazz. Do you have any bands or songs that come to mind?
There’s one song from the 80s with a big marimba solo. That’s the only thing I can think of. It’s called like, “Moonlight Feels Right.” It was a top hit in the 80s, I think. You have to check it out.
Oliver Mayman’s Friday Jam Sessions at Chris’ Jazz Cafe Poster
Well, back to you saying that you don't know if what you do is important, tonight you're celebrating two years of having your jam sessions at Chris' Jazz Café. How did that start, and how has it changed in two years?
It started because [Chris’] stopped doing jam sessions for a little bit. They rotated through a bunch of different hosts for a while and for whatever reason, either they didn't want to do it, or they fucked it up or something, but they just stopped for a while. Before the pandemic, there was one Monday nights and then one Friday late nights and Saturday late nights. Now they're not open on Mondays anymore, but they still do Friday, late night, Saturday, late night. I was playing there a lot, just regular shows, so I just asked them if I could host it. They were kind of just like, “Sure.” So, I started doing it. At first it was monthly, then it was bi-weekly, and then it started being weekly last year. Now we're just doing it, I guess. The reason I think maybe it's selfish is that if I weren't doing it, someone else would do it. There's not a lack of musicians in the world. It's just in terms of supply and demand.
I mean it's nuanced.
Yeah, no, it is nuanced. It is. Even if you were to say like, “I'm good at it,” God forbid someone said that, even if that, someone else would be good at it too. There are lots of great musicians in the world, so I don't feel particularly like, I mean feel lucky and special that I get to do stuff in the world. That's the only thing that makes me think like, “Am I like, good?”
We briefly talked about changes from the pandemic. Jazz is very community-driven and social. I want to ask how you think that has changed since COVID-19?
A lot of the venues that were around before the pandemic aren't around anymore, but there are a lot of new ones that sort of sprang up. That probably happens anytime there's a recession. A bunch of places go out of business, and then as soon as it's cool and a bunch of new money comes in, places open, and they all want to have music. But then some of them slowly cut back on music over time. Some don’t, though. Cellar Dog, for example, is a new place on Spruce and 15th. There are a lot of new places to play. I was a freshman in college when the pandemic happened, so I wasn't really playing anywhere at that point. My perspective is probably limited. I just stayed home and practiced all day because I didn’t have to go to school anymore.
Since graduating from college, have you been teaching private lessons?
I teach a little bit. I don’t teach a ton, and I don't teach kids. I don't think I can.
Is it a patience thing?
It's just an ability thing. Most of my students are middle-aged. Most of my students are older than me. I've got one guy in high school, he's awesome, but he's a special case. I wouldn't have wanted to have myself as a student when I was a kid.
What's your approach to teaching and keeping your students engaged?
Well, so that's the thing. I'm not that good of a businessman when I teach. If you want to pay me, like I don't know. If they pay me a month late, who cares? I'm not going to hustle them to come next week if they feel they didn't practice. I guess it depends on the situation. I'm not going to insert my own goals upon them. If they want to be the best vibraphonist in the world, I'll help them out with that. But if they're just chilling and enjoy playing for fun, that’s fine too. I think the stronger your student is, the less good of a teacher you have to be. At that point, it's more you're hanging out and sharing information. Which I'm better at than teaching, probably. I think teaching is harder than people think it is.
You have your own dampening studies book. What was the process like working on that?
I started doing that in the pandemic, I guess. It's been a few years. There is the David Friedman book, which every vibraphone player learns out of. David Friedman is a vibraphonist. He's from New York, and he lives in Germany now. He's great, but he wrote the book on vibraphone technique in the 70s, and ever since then, basically nothing else has happened. The vibraphone is also a very young instrument. I just felt like I was playing a lot of stuff that I didn't think anyone else was playing or teaching. I sort of wanted a record of it, the learning process for me, and to just work stuff out. There are all these techniques, I'm not going to say I invented them. Some guy probably did it in 1995, and he's going to email me and say, “Why are you saying you invented that? I did that.” But I’ve never heard some of it before, and I think vibraphonists are not accepted in percussion curriculum, really. There's maybe a little glance at it for a second. If they do anything, it's that book. I just felt like there was a lack of material, and I could contribute to that.
Where do you grab inspiration from when you're writing, playing, or soloing?
I don't really get inspired by that much other than music. I'm not one of those guys who sees a painting and writes a song, or has some kind of feeling and then writes a song. I think listening to different music and listening to other people play, and how they play, and trying to learn what they're doing inspires me. I write music, but I'm not really writing right now. But just playing jazz, it's all language. It's all vocabulary. It's not just learn the scales and play the notes and the scales. You know, everything has a syntax to it, like grammar. And that's also changed over time. Everyone plays differently. I think that's one of the things I like about jazz versus classical music. Sure, you're maybe supposed to have a subtle level of individual artistry, but by large you're supposed to conform. There’s something to that. I'm not saying that's not deep, but I think I'm inspired by the people I play with.
Who is a dream collaboration within jazz, or someone you would like to work with? Whether that be a local or a very well-known person?
That's a good question. I've never thought about that. I don't know, once you listen to “Moonlight Feels Right,” I could be the guy playing that solo for the tribute band for whatever the band was called in like 20 years. I’m going to look up their name. I swear they’re not famous.
Let’s see.
Starbuck? You've got to listen to it.
Yeah, I don't know who that is, but they have a 2023 remaster.
Yeah, yeah. So, they're working on it. They are working on it.
Do you have any upcoming shows or anything you’re working on that you would like to share?
It's sad that I don't have any news or something to share. I don't know, I'm doing stuff, but I think a lot of things are on pause. For example, I'm working on a mallet for a company called Malletech. Do you know Malletech?
Of course.
Okay word. Well, yeah, there's going to be an Oliver Mayman mallet at some point in the near future.
What! You are way too humble.
Here's the thing, though, that has been in progress for about a year and a half. I endorse Malletech heavy. They are very innovative. But yeah, it's a work in progress. I have a prototype that sounds pretty good, I think. They sent me a million samples, and I tweaked it until I liked it. I'm writing another book, too, but that will take a while.
All this after saying you had no news. This is all important and good.
Good for me, maybe.
In my experience, you don’t find too many mallet players who are passionate enough to do these things.
No, it is. It's important to me. I think there's an interesting thing in jazz where jazz vibraphonists are kind of split into two types of people. I'm just going to totally generalize here, too. There are people who play two mallets and sound great and are really in the jazz world, including the most famous vibraphonists, probably. There are those people, and then there are the four-mallet people who are more academic, and they aren't as much in the jazz jazz world if that makes sense. And they are not my favorite players generally. There are some that I love, but in terms of swing and traditional jazz, really liking vibraphone technique and being a nerd about it doesn't correlate with sounding good when you play. You can just go to school like, “I'm going to write a book. I'm going to be a fucking guy writing a fucking book about technique,” and you do all this shit, but then you don't play with people. You don’t do the things you're supposed to do. I would like to care about the instrument. Not that no one else cares about the instrument, but I would like to explore the technical possibilities of the vibraphone while still just submitting myself to the world of jazz.
That's a great approach. I feel like that's what everyone should be doing.
I hope so. I hope so.
All photos by Lora Sherrodd