BRAND! Day 1

OLA TUNJI

Since the summer of 2025, things have been moving fast for Ola Tunji, the Brussels-based quartet led by saxophonist Ornella Noulet, with a shared dedication to the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane. They have taken home awards at Gent Jazz Talent and the Avignon Jazz Festival. Their music embodies the intensity and openness of free jazz from the 1960s onwards.

Their name pays tribute to Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian percussionist and friend of John Coltrane, who introduced African percussion to American jazz audiences and helped shape the spiritual dimension of 1960s jazz. Inspired by the Coltranes, Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler, the group embraces improvisation as a political and spiritual act. At BRAND!, they will be presenting their forthcoming debut album (W.E.R.F. Records).

ØKSE

ØKSE means ‘axe’ in Danish – one of humanity’s oldest tools: rough and precise, practical and mythical all at once. But ØKSE is more than just steel and wood: it is also Ashe – the life force that flows through everything, living or inanimate. Ashe is a groove you can tap into; those who follow it will encounter this international ensemble of stars along the way.

The quartet comprising New York-based drummer Savannah Harris, Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, Haitian electronic musician Val Jeanty and Sweden’s Petter Eldh on bass, synths and sampler kicks off BRAND! 2026 with a fitting dose of bravura. Their debut album, ØKSE, was released in 2024 on the renowned Backwoodz label.

In 2025, the band won both the Deutsche Jazzpreis and the Danish Music Award for Jazz. Critics hear “everything from jazz to joik to rap to Haitian Vodou” and praise how ØKSE shatters the glass wall between hip-hop and free jazz. The reason for all that clinking glass is the friction between improvisation and groove – music that demands new standards.