Olie Brice

Rachel Musson and Mark Sanders have been two of my closest collaborators for years. Rachel and I have recorded as a duo, she was in one of the first bands I led and composed for, and is currently in my Octet (as well as a new project which I’ll announce at a later date…) Mark is almost certainly the drummer I’ve played with the most frequently – we’ve toured and recorded together with musicians including Tobias Delius (as Somersaults), Paul Dunmall, Luis Vicente, Mikolaj Trzaska and Ken Vandermark. Mark and Rachel have also done loads of projects together that I haven’t part of, including the fantastic trio Shifa (with Pat Thomas). However, despite these long-term musical relationships and friendships, it took us years to start playing as trio.

Once we did, though – it was immediately a complete joy, more than the sum of its parts. And now I’m really delighted to release – on my label West Hill Records – or debut trio album, ‘Immense Blue’. The album will be released tomorrow, the 14th January, with a launch gig at London’s Cafe Oto. This will hopefully be followed up with several more gigs later in the year – watch this space….

You can hear – and buy – the new album here:

https://westhill.bandcamp.com/album/immense-blue

https://confrontrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-laughing-stone

I’m particularly proud of and excited about this new release…

Paul Dunmall has been extremely important for me, both as an influence and collaborator. Playing with him pretty regularly over the past few years has been a complete honour and joy, and recording this duo session with him was a real dream come true… I’ll admit to be being quite pleased with my own playing on this one too…

The duo is on Mark Wastell‘s wonderful label Confront, and featuring Paul’s gorgeous artwork on the cover, two tracks with Paul on tenor and one each on clarinet, flute and alto sax – please check it out!

Hugely looking forward to this! Somersaults – my trio with Toby Delius and Mark Sanders – has been one of my very favourite bands since we first started playing together, and over the past decade we’ve made two albums as well as playing a number of tours and festivals.

We’ll be playing 3 gigs, in Birmingham with very special guest Paul Dunmall, at the Vortex, and at the inaugural Two Ship festival in Hastings. We’ll also be recording with Dunmall, so keep an eye out for that!

Fire Hills has been out for a few months now, and has received a lot of really nice responses. I was really pleased to be interviewed for Freeness, the contemporary jazz programme on BBC Radio 3. Here is a selection of the reviews:

• Point of Departure
• All About Jazz
• London Jazz News
• Salt Peanuts
• Jazzword

and a live review of the album launch at Cafe Oto:

• The Blue Moment

I’m really delighted to announce a new album coming in September, a double album of my trio and octet – eight new compositions and an incredible array of musicians! I’m really proud of this recording, I reckon it’s a bit of a breakthrough in my composing, and there’s some astonishing improvising from my bandmates

The trio features Tom Challenger on tenor sax, and Will Glaser on drums, and the octet is Alex Bonney & Kim Macari on trumpets, Jason Yarde on alto, George Crowley & Rachel Musson on tenors, Cath Roberts on baritone and Johnny Hunter on drums

The album comes out on September 13th, and is already available to pre-order here – https://westhill.bandcamp.com/album/fire-hills

We’ll be launching the album on September 13th with a double bill at one of my favourite venues, Cafe Oto, in London. Info and tickets here – https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/olie-brice-trio-octet-fire-hills-album-launch/

if you’d like to learn more, I did an interview with the London Jazz Blog, here – https://londonjazznews.com/2022/08/12/olie-brice-new-double-album-fire-hills-launch-13-sept-cafe-oto/

‘Conduits’, my duo album with Cath Roberts, releases today! This album is very different to any other recording I’ve made, in that we recorded it in real time but not in the same place. It was recorded while playing together online, using an amazing piece of software called JackTrip, during one of the Covid lockdowns. I was extremely sceptical that this could work, but happily I was wrong…

I love playing with Cath – we’re also in a new band together called Spinningwork, album coming in September – so really pleased to have this out there. If you don’t know her incredible band Sloth racket you should. I’m really pleased to be on Relative Pitch, one of the most exciting labels in contemporary improvised music. It’s also the first album cover to feature a photograph by me, although there’s already another one on the way…

You can stream, download and buy CDs here –

https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/album/conduits

and I’m also hosting it on my own bandcamp for anyone who’d like a copy in the UK, transatlantic postage having gone crazy –

https://westhill.bandcamp.com/album/conduits

Finally, if you’re reading this anywhere near London, we’re playing at Mopomoso (at the Vortex in Dalston) on Sunday afternoon, 2pm 27th March

I had a really nice time chatting to Tom P for his ‘Call it Anything’ radio show on Routestock Radio. We covered a lot of different stuff – the bass players we talked about range from Jimmy Blanton to Petter Eldh, via Richard Davis, Fred Hopkins and John Edwards – and it wasn’t all about bass players… You can hear it here (the interview starts just after the half hour mark): https://www.mixcloud.com/RadioRouteStock/call-it-anything-with-tom-p-26/

I’ve also done an written interview recently for the Jazz South website: https://jazzsouth.org.uk/2021/03/catching-up-with-olie-brice/

I was delighted to be commissioned by Jazz South to compose a piece as part of their 2020 Radar series. Due to lockdowns and other complications it wasn’t filmed or streamed until now, but last night was the premier. The piece is for a trio with two wonderful horn players, Jason Yarde on alto and Nick Malcolm on trumpet. Here it is –

After so many months without anything even approximating a gig, it’s been amazing to do a couple of streamed gigs for this year’s London Jazz Festival

I had the great joy of playing at the venue I’ve played the most regularly for years now – the Vortex – in the company of two of my favourite collaborators, Tom Challenger and Will Glaser. We played a set of my tunes, plus one each from Eric Dolphy and Johnny Dyani – you can watch it here:

I was also delighted to join Binker Golding and Steve Noble for a streamed, improvised set from Kings Place – that will be available for another week or so here, although you have to buy a ticket to view it – details here:

https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/events/binker-golding