Olayemi Ogundola born in Oyo town, Oyo State, Nigeria is an alto saxophonist, percussionist, performer, composer, and educator, born as the second of four children into a musically prone family. He was exposed to various styles of music, predominantly from West Africa, from a very early age beginning with the church choir and Yoruba traditional music performance.

 

He was introduced to classical singing by his father who is a choir master in the Methodist Church. He received his first lesson on music theory from a neighbor at age 16. He was forced to stop taking music lessons while in high school because His father wanted him to be an engineer, but He would sneak out with two of his friends for music lessons before returning home from school. Not long after this, He got his first taste of jazz music at 18 after buying a CD titled "All My Tomorrows" by Grover Washington Jr and became very interested in the concept of improvisation and in the music of jazz saxophonists Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. Ever since then, it had become a genre He ardently pursued and constantly sought to get better in.

 

In 2020, He moved to the USA for his graduate degree. He studied with Noah Preminger, Eric Hofbauer, Ben Schwendener, and Charlie Kohlhase, concentrating on jazz and contemporary music performance. He had the opportunity to perform with top musicians around the Boston music scene. Most notably, he’s been a regular jam session host and performer at the historic Wally’s Cafe, one of the oldest jazz clubs in Boston.

 

He projects a warm and fierce sound on the saxophone and has been regarded many times as an ensemble conceptualizer. The traditional music across West Africa and jazz has been a major influence and process to finding His own voice after being exposed to learning Yoruba musical instruments such as Dundun, Agbe, Bata drum, Sakara, Gudugudu, Omele Bata and several others.

 

Olayemi premiered his upcoming project at the 2023 edition of Jazz Along The Charles music festival in Boston and excited to announce his debut album release in the coming days.