Nubya Garcia is an artist who defies easy categorization. For the London-born saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, everything begins from a place of exploration and self-study—a desire to cross disciplines and ignore arbitrary boundaries that don’t fit. Garcia’s second album, Odyssey, released in September 2024 on Concord Jazz, is a majestic work blending orchestral arrangements with R&B, jazz, broken beat, and dub. The result is a grand, nuanced album that feels airy and celestial without sacrificing groove.

Garcia, like her older siblings, received a solid musical education. She first learned the violin and later played viola in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra. At age 10, she began playing the saxophone and soon joined the Camden Jazz Band before being accepted into the Junior Jazz program at the Royal Academy of Music. Garcia went on to form her own bands and regularly performed at numerous festivals across England.

In 2017, she released her debut album Nubya’s 5ive. Her 2018 EP When We Are explored how electronics could be integrated into a live jazz setting; the project emerged as a result of her receiving the Steve Reid Innovation Award. Garcia’s album Source was nominated for Jazz Album of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in 2021, where she herself was honored as “Jazz Musician of the Year.”