Biography
Angelo Outlaw hails from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he works as a mallet percussionist, recording artist, composer, and instructor. Contemporary groove jazz and progressive R&B intertwine with glitch-hop beats and downtempo atmospherics to shape his elegantly funky style. World champion percussion and marching ensembles have featured him as a performer while also benefiting from more than a decade of his instruction.
In 2020 he connected with the Philly-based record label and rhythm section Eraserhood Sound, whose members are Maxwell Perla and Vincent John. Operating under the alias “Jello Vibes,” he received their support on the digital-only Uneven Contact, which threads vibraphones, marimbas, and beats through minimalist loops, library music, circular melodies, house rhythms, and hip-hop beats. The same year he contributed to Hibernation’s Jello & Jaice EP. Both volumes of 2021’s The Outlaw Sessions and the 2022 club smash “Time Traveler”/“Silent Horizon,” credited to Angelo Outlaw, likewise benefited from their collaboration. For the 2024 long-player Axis of Time the team brought in backing vocalists and select guest soloists to emphasize its jazz-funk direction.
Born and raised in Philadelphia as Angelo Outlaw, Jr., he started mallet percussion at age 13. He entered the world champion Bushwackers Senior Drum & Bugle Corps from Princeton, New Jersey, in 2024; the next year he joined the world-class Kiwanis Kavaliers in Miami, Florida. Two years with San Antonio’s Crossmen Drum & Bugle Corps in Texas followed, after which he performed with Canton, Ohio’s Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps in 2008 and 2009 and remained with Nashville’s Music City Mystique’s Front Ensemble until 2012.
Once his performing time with the latter concluded, he continued there in an instructional capacity before heading to Denver for a two-year stint teaching the Blue Knights Drum & Bugle Corps and then returning to Nashville. Outlaw moved back to Philadelphia in 2018, took the stage name “Jello Vibes,” and began connecting with the city’s hip-hop, electronic, and R&B communities while maintaining his jazz work. The digital Jello Vibes EP appeared in 2019.
Through scene contacts he again encountered the Philly rhythm section, production team, and record label Eraserhood Sound, formed by Maxwell Perla and Vincent John. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic the duo helped realize the full-length Uneven Contact, issued in May under the Jello Vibes moniker, along with Hibernation’s Jello & Jaice EP. During 2021 he performed on an episode of NPR Music Live Session and demonstrated his Pearl Drums malletSTATION EM1, the compact synth vibraphone that reproduces acoustic vibraphone timbres and interfaces with laptop-based digital audio workstations. That April the digital soul single “Secrets,” featuring Fawziyya Heart and Eric Proctor, was released. Throughout 2021 Outlaw and Eraserhood Sound shaped the abstract yet episodic compositions that comprise both volumes of the Outlaw Sessions series and the “synth & soul” single “Forgotten Tomorrows,” which garnered notable airplay on local independent radio. In 2022 the international club smash “Time Traveler”/“Silent Horizon” emerged—two cosmic jazz-funk pieces whose sound recalls Roy Ayers.
Late in 2023 Outlaw, Eraserhood Sound, several backing vocalists, and the jazz soloists Christine Elise on harp, Ron Kerber and Mike Buckley on flute, and Dan Scott Forreal on guitar spent a month capturing the material that became Angelo Outlaw’s debut full-length, Axis of Time, a work at once deeply spiritual and firmly rooted in funk and jazz.
In 2020 he connected with the Philly-based record label and rhythm section Eraserhood Sound, whose members are Maxwell Perla and Vincent John. Operating under the alias “Jello Vibes,” he received their support on the digital-only Uneven Contact, which threads vibraphones, marimbas, and beats through minimalist loops, library music, circular melodies, house rhythms, and hip-hop beats. The same year he contributed to Hibernation’s Jello & Jaice EP. Both volumes of 2021’s The Outlaw Sessions and the 2022 club smash “Time Traveler”/“Silent Horizon,” credited to Angelo Outlaw, likewise benefited from their collaboration. For the 2024 long-player Axis of Time the team brought in backing vocalists and select guest soloists to emphasize its jazz-funk direction.
Born and raised in Philadelphia as Angelo Outlaw, Jr., he started mallet percussion at age 13. He entered the world champion Bushwackers Senior Drum & Bugle Corps from Princeton, New Jersey, in 2024; the next year he joined the world-class Kiwanis Kavaliers in Miami, Florida. Two years with San Antonio’s Crossmen Drum & Bugle Corps in Texas followed, after which he performed with Canton, Ohio’s Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps in 2008 and 2009 and remained with Nashville’s Music City Mystique’s Front Ensemble until 2012.
Once his performing time with the latter concluded, he continued there in an instructional capacity before heading to Denver for a two-year stint teaching the Blue Knights Drum & Bugle Corps and then returning to Nashville. Outlaw moved back to Philadelphia in 2018, took the stage name “Jello Vibes,” and began connecting with the city’s hip-hop, electronic, and R&B communities while maintaining his jazz work. The digital Jello Vibes EP appeared in 2019.
Through scene contacts he again encountered the Philly rhythm section, production team, and record label Eraserhood Sound, formed by Maxwell Perla and Vincent John. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic the duo helped realize the full-length Uneven Contact, issued in May under the Jello Vibes moniker, along with Hibernation’s Jello & Jaice EP. During 2021 he performed on an episode of NPR Music Live Session and demonstrated his Pearl Drums malletSTATION EM1, the compact synth vibraphone that reproduces acoustic vibraphone timbres and interfaces with laptop-based digital audio workstations. That April the digital soul single “Secrets,” featuring Fawziyya Heart and Eric Proctor, was released. Throughout 2021 Outlaw and Eraserhood Sound shaped the abstract yet episodic compositions that comprise both volumes of the Outlaw Sessions series and the “synth & soul” single “Forgotten Tomorrows,” which garnered notable airplay on local independent radio. In 2022 the international club smash “Time Traveler”/“Silent Horizon” emerged—two cosmic jazz-funk pieces whose sound recalls Roy Ayers.
Late in 2023 Outlaw, Eraserhood Sound, several backing vocalists, and the jazz soloists Christine Elise on harp, Ron Kerber and Mike Buckley on flute, and Dan Scott Forreal on guitar spent a month capturing the material that became Angelo Outlaw’s debut full-length, Axis of Time, a work at once deeply spiritual and firmly rooted in funk and jazz.
Albums
Singles
