morten j. olsen. was born in Stavanger, Norway in 1981 and lived there until 4 years ago when he moved to Amsterdam to study.
He grew up listening to classical music and very little jazz. He started taking piano lessons at the age of 6 and learned how to read music, but found it weird that written music was telling him what to play. At the age of 9 he started playing drums and vibraphone, hoping that drums would be a more free instrument.

Morten studied jazz and classical percussion with a Hungarian professor as a young boy while starting up a rock band at the age of 11. That band, The Criminal Shitkids was a storming success in the little town of Stavanger. But soon he found rock music was a bit boring so he joined a jazz quartet at the age of 13. That jazz quartet turned into an electric trio that Morten composed all of the music for. Three years later he met the guitarist Anders Hana when he was just 16. After a while it was only Anders and Morten left in the jazz group, they both tried making new bands with different people, but it always ended up falling apart. So they just decided to play duo. Morten was always experimenting with playing music without melody, without time, without everything except fun and life. He started playing with Frode Gjerstad in the late 90's. Frode,for many, is Norway’s finest saxophonist and a true innovator. He taught Morten a thing or two. Around this time Morten met Andrew D’Angelo. He then moved to Amsterdam to study at the Amsterdam Conservatory and started up a bunch of bands while he studied there from 2001 to 2004.

While attending the Conservatory Morten and Koen Nutters decided to form a collective with all the other 'freaks' at the conservatory which included a couple of guys from the sonology department in the Hague. We called it The N-Collective. Nowadays, The N-Collective puts on full-evening programs with contemporary music in a written, improvised or liquid manner, often electro-acoustic. Morten plays with many bands, a couple of them are connected to N-Collective. OfficeR(6) and Mayas/Nutters/Olsen/Galvez will both release their debut CD's this year. MoHa! Is a duo that Morten has with Anders and has released two albums already. Tthis year, Rune Grammfon, the famous norwegian label, has asked MoHa! to go into the studio to record for him and it will come out in January 2006. He has also played with Steve Lacy once and many other pretty fancy names, and also with a pop band with lead singer Thomas Dypdal. This band is extremely popular in Norway and often sells out to concert halls for 1,000's of people.