Tenor saxophonist Nubya Garcia is one of the top-line names to emerge from the past decade’s explosion of young London jazz talent. Her second solo album foregrounds Garcia’s deepening compositional and arranging skills, as well as bravura performances from some longtime associates – keys player Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective) and drummer Sam Jones, for two – plus input from a handful of female vocalists.
Cross-pollination is a jazz default; that tendency runs even stronger in the London cohort. This album’s orchestral bent also chimes with the recent, fine work of Cassie Kinoshi’s Seed Ensemble (Gratitude, 2024). But Odyssey is ultimately about Garcia – figuring out life, and rekindling her love for scoring strings.
Audaciously, one track – Water’s Path – is made up solely of pizzicato strings and a stately cello, all supplied by the Chineke! Orchestra, while a bolder, string-free outing, The Seer, craves 20/20 foresight at exhilaratingly high speeds. Overall, the strings temper Garcia’s tone, making for several languorous, lyrical passages. Triumphance, meanwhile, finds her in a speaking role alongside a heavy dub undercarriage. The other vocalists – Esperanza Spalding best among them, on Dawn – are there to express female perspectives, but distract slightly from the singularity of purpose here.
