Eliana Glass (US) & Ola Tunji

Born in Australia, raised in Seattle and currently living in New York, Eliana Glass is a versatile musician who strikes a chord from the very first note. Her music sparkles and shimmers, with a subtle playfulness reminiscent of light dancing across a ceiling. Her timeless voice – reminiscent of Billie Holiday’s vocal timbre – is imbued with an insatiable sensitivity and melancholy that leaves no one unmoved. Utterly captivating. On her debut album E, her songs touch on every aspect of life’s emotional spectrum. Through their understated, meticulous and minimalist arrangements and poetic lyrics, they lay bare a wealth of emotions and spark the imagination. Ola Tunji Ola Tunji is a Brussels-based quartet led by saxophonist Ornella Noulet and brought together by a shared love of John Coltrane’s spiritual jazz. Their music exudes the intensity and freedom of the 1960s ‘New Thing’ movement. The band’s name refers to Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian-born percussionist and friend of Coltrane, who introduced African rhythms to a wider jazz audience and had a lasting influence on the rhythmic and spiritual development of jazz. For Ola Tunji, his legacy symbolises music as a powerful means of connection, awareness and transcendence. Inspired by John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler, the quartet regards improvisation as both a spiritual and a political act. Their live performances often build to a trance-like intensity, in which musicians and audience are swept up together in a shared experience of elation. This way, music once again becomes a space for love, sisterhood and brotherhood, and collective energy. Their debut release, Untitled EP (2024), was met with international acclaim, receiving airplay in Canada, the US, Japan, Belgium and France, and featuring 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 audience awards at Gent Jazz Talent as well as the competition at the Avignon Jazz Festival. The band is currently working on their debut album, which is due to be released in October 2026 on W.E.R.F. Records.Discover more from Ola Tunji at Impressions #1,