Olivia Cuttill Quintet
... And Writing And Singing Tunes To Be Swinging
by Howard Lawes

Trumpeter and bandleader Olivia Cuttill graduated from Leeds Conservatoire in 2023 and shared her thoughts about her time as a student in an interview published here. She says “I knew all my life I wanted to be a musician. I come from a line of musicians, my dad is a drummer, and my dad’s dad was a pianist. To be a musician was never a choice I had to make, it was something that I’ve always wanted to do.”

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Talking to Olivia via Zoom she filled in some of the details.  Olivia began playing the trumpet at school, aged 10, choosing brass rather than woodwind, but then realised that getting a tune out of a trumpet is no mean feat.  For several years her progress was rather slow, not least because playing a trumpet is hard on the mouth and the arms.  Finally, at 6th Form College she achieved a good standard, found jazz and then auditioned to study at a conservatoire.  Her first two auditions failed to impress, largely due to nerves, but Leeds was third time lucky and Olivia produced her best performance to date.

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As a 17-year-old Olivia was understandably a little apprehensive, leaving her home in East London and living in the north of England for the first time.  However, the friendliness she encountered soon put her at ease to the extent that she came to love the north and having returned to London, misses it every day. Her first year in Leeds was blighted by COVID and like most students most of her learning was done online, but this proved to be a blessing in disguise as she was able to put in many more hours of practice than might otherwise have been the case.  In 2021 she formed her quartet, adding a vocalist in 2022, and she recorded her first quintet album, The Whole Damn Plan, in 2023. In the post graduation interview mentioned above Olivia is asked “What’s the most important lesson during your time at Leeds” and she gives the answer “Hard work pays off”. This maxim is certainly one she has applied to her own career having released her first album, Three’s A Crowd, in 2022, followed by Christmas with Nico and Olivia  in 2023, and Cadillac to Book Club (2023) by Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band.  Olivia also became involved with National Youth Jazz Orchestra as an Emerging Professional working on the Nikki Yeoh & NYJO Present: Speechmik X-Ploration programme, revisiting and reinterpreting some of the pianist/composer’s work, in memory of her late mentor and trumpet player, Ian Carr.

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Here is the track Sea Games from Olivia's album Three's A Crowd: