The Delete BinNubya Garcia Plays “Source”
Listen to this track by British saxophonist and jazz mixologist Nubya Garcia. It’s “Source”, the title track to her second record that came out in August 2020. This cut was a single, released simultaneously with the album from which it comes and is indicative of the themes of the whole record; connection, identity, and the power of community. Without lyrics, those themes are communicated musically, incorporating reggae along with classic post-bop jazz on this track specifically. Garcia comes by this amalgam of stylistic ingredients pretty honestly, citing British reggae outfit Steel Pulse among her musical influences along with Sonny Rollins.
Garcia established her pedigree in formal musical instruction from very early on, learning her instrument from the age of 11 after having also studied the violin, piano, and clarinet. After a stint in the Camden Youth Jazz Band and in other community-based programs in London including Tomorrow’s Warriors, she studied music formally at the Royal Academy of Music and on a five-week scholarship at none other than the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
As evidenced on this track alone, and beyond her musical education, she also has something important to say through her art. Her music suggests that the very source of musical traditions that spring from Africa, the Caribbean, and America are all a part of a great continuum. These musical streams continue to impact musicians in Britain and in Europe, with new forms emerging as a result, becoming a part of that whole.
“Source” is an expression of that, and a part of a series of musical statements on the album about what it is to feel connected to something bigger and far older than oneself. The concept takes on many forms across the whole album, including the powerful connections to a history of people and experiences across continents and eras before its composer was even born.
The vitality heard in this song is also a reflection of the scenes and journeys that Garcia came out of personally, immersed in a niche of jazz culture in London, cutting her teeth as a participant in jam nights while building her confidence as a bandleader and writer simply by playing live – a lot.
Nubya Garcia on stage, April 2019. image: Joachim Bomann (cropped).Garcia and her band – Sam Jones on drums, Daniel Casimir on double bass, and Joe Armon-Jones on keyboards – create a stew of sounds that draw from these multiple musical streams to show how connected they are. They’re joined by vocalists Sheila Maurice Grey (aka Ms. Maurice), Cassie Kinoshi, and Richie Seivwright, all three of them instrumentalists in their own right – trumpet, saxophone, and trombone respectively. Intrisic to the music is in finding connections and commonalities in disparate musical forms, and also between each other as collaborative musicians with a shared vision.
The song kicks off with a reggae and dub-inspired groove between keyboards, bass, and drums as the voices float in, a herald to Garcia’s ruminative melodic tenor saxophone lines that sound like vocal parts themselves. Then, the song dives into a canyon of jazz chords before returning to the meditative groove again, making this song sound like sacred music; spacious, celebratory, and soaked in echo.
The interplay between the blended voices, Armon-Jones’ keyboards, and Garcia’s tenor are at the melodic forefront. This is while drummer Sam Jones’ elemental, polyrhythmic playing interlocks with Daniel Casimir’s resonant bass lines. They shift seamlessly between reggae and jazz until the two become a unified whole.
This title track and the rest of the record came out of gathering these kinds of musical ideas together while remaining conscious of keeping it as open stylistically as possible. This mindset is one of the defining tenets of jazz in the 21st century which has been true of the music since King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, relying on a balance between personal exploration and those explorations and curiosities shared between musicians in the moment. Within that, genres and styles become entirely secondary whether the music is infused with reggae, dub, hip-hop, Afrobeat, or any other musical ingredient.
As hard as it has been to define jazz in terms of strict musical territory, this is a vital portion to understanding and appreciating it. This is particularly true now as the ingredients that feed jazz are more numerous, and with an emerging generation of musicians dedicated to pushing its boundaries. Garcia’s music is a high standard to illustrate this sense of movement, but not in any kind of academic way. This is an expression of the heart.
Nubya Garcia is an active musician, writer, and bandleader today.
You can learn more about her and the various projects in which she’s been involved at nubyagarcia.com. You can read about new releases, tour dates, and other goodies.
For more on the Source record and the musical ingredients that make it up, check out this October 2020 interview with Nubya Garcia.
And to hear another take on this track and others on the record, here’s Nubya Garcia’s Tiny Desk Concert, filmed remotely due to the lockdown precautions at the time. Instead of the titular tiny desk at NPR’s offices, Garcia’s session took place in the interior of a moored boat on the Thames in London.
Enjoy!
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