OLA TUNJI - JAZZLAB-CLUB CONCERT

Ola Tunji is a quartet from Brussels that has united around saxophonist Ornella Noulet in a shared dedication to the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane. Their music breathes the intensity and openness of the New Thing movement of the sixties, the movement that later became known as free jazz. Their name is a tribute to Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian-born percussionist and good friend of John Coltrane, who introduced African percussion to the jazz audience in the US and helped shape the rhythmic and spiritual dimensions of jazz from the sixties. For OLA TUNJI, his legacy represents the power of music as a path to connection, awareness, and transcendence, ideas that also return in the work of the Coltranes and Pharoah Sanders. Deeply inspired by John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler, the group embraces improvisation as a political and spiritual act. On stage, their performances often take on a trance-like intensity, which carries both musicians and audience to a feeling of shared elevation. The music reminds us that it can still be a medium for love, brotherhood and sisterhood, and collective elevation. Their first release, Untitled EP (September 27, 2024), was widely acclaimed, played in Canada, the US, Japan, Belgium, and France, and mentioned in All About Jazz, Citizen Jazz and Bandcamp’s Spiritual Jazz Revival section. In the summer of 2025, OLA TUNJI won both the jury and the audience award at Gent Jazz Talent, as well as the competition of the Avignon Jazz Festival, where Ornella Noullet also took home the Best Soloist Award. After this success, the band is now preparing its debut album, which will be released in October/November 2026 on W.E.R.F. Records. Bekijk Les Trophé es du Sunside Beluister Untitled EP