Tone. It’s a personal and vibrant expression of clarity. That was on full display during a lively, crowd-cheered 90-minute set, presided over by Nubya (pronounced nu-BI-ya) Garcia, the London tenor sax player, composer, bandleader, and phenomenon on her first headlining tour through the States, celebrating the release of her second studio album, Odyssey.
Enhanced by a stunning dress, hair worn down, and sporting shades, she made it known Thursday, April 17, at The Chapel, the Valencia Street home to independent music in the heart of the Mission District, that her immediately identifiable tone, a global trademark on wax, when you hear it you know it, is indeed a real ting. In real time.
Garcia opened with “Dawn,” an arrangement on the record done with Esperanza Spalding, and then “Solstice,” another feature on the project, which slid seamlessly into “We Walk In Gold,” the collaboration with one of her idols, Georgia Anne Muldrow.
Pausing to run down the songs, she was ecstatic to be in the Bay Area, proclaiming, “You are all so fantastic and so is this space” to the cheerful audience. Garcia stated that SF is very “vibey,” indeed. That mood, one that indicated that music constantly runs through her imagination, made her move, sway, and step while her band members were soloing, politely motioning to the sound person to turn up or down the monitors, and pointing and acknowledging when her fellow musicians landed their emotive and rhythmic solos. Band leader, indeed.
Listen, it makes no difference which solo album of hers you reference. She tends to like one-word titles, and both were shortlisted on year-end best-of lists. The cinematic, classical, and orchestral waves that charge through last year’s epic collection of arrangements on Odyssey, or the Caribbean influence on her solo debut Source, from 2020. Or we can dig in the crates to her 2019 performance on Fyah, the tuba-playing phenom Theon Cross’s debut album, where Garcia provided both dedicated group-player chops and solo-performer ascension alongside Cross and drummer Moses Boyd.
Pianist Lyle Barton charmed and enhanced several moments during the show on a dual stack of keyboards (for certain a Fender Rhodes on the bottom), double bassist Max Luthert kept pushing atmosphere through groove and gravity, and Sam Jones, drummer of the studio-recorded album, had exquisite timing with the band’s fascination of moving from jazz to cumbia to dub and into hip-hop breakbeats. He kept it all in front, on display so the crowd could make the connection between jazz and all of those components of sound system culture.
But it was within the title track “Odyssey,” when Garcia’s loftiness and majesty rose and pushed through the surface. Those profound horn line runs act as bit-by-bit declarations, piece by piece, as the solo starts gestating in the lower register, at first plodding then gurgling upward, switching direction to open up and charge forward. You hear it from off in the distance infer, “I’m coming,” and then, after billowy crescendos, peaks and pauses, it arrives and knocks the bejesus out of your soul, pummeling your chest and dispelling any thought that jazz is dead. Nope. It’s quite alive in 2025.
One listen to Nubya, and you’d believe it’s thriving.
Help us save local journalism!
Every tax-deductible donation helps us grow to cover the issues that mean the most to our community. Become a 48 Hills Hero and support the only daily progressive news source in the Bay Area.
That tone clarity of Nubya’s is akin to the timbre of the great Sonny Rollins, who famously built it up by practicing his saxophone on the Williamsburg Bridge, sometimes 14 to 15 hours a day. Filling the air with that rousing vibe of life. Yes, that type of command was inescapable at this sold-out show. As much as Cloud City can be a trip these days, Ess Eff still, thank Gawd, knows what’s up.
