Olivia Murphy: Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories

Olivia Murphy is a young composer and bandleader who has been establishing herself as a distinctive voice on the British jazz scene, leading a large ensemble that mostly performs her own compositions. She makes her orchestral recording debut on this album, which applies her musical ideas to themes of transformation and community derived from mythical portraits of birds.

One of the most notable features of Murphy's writing is that she often does not separate her orchestra into individual instrumental sections, like reeds and brass. Instead, she combines the instruments into a more nebulous but imposing force with soloists stepping out to make their mark. Intertwined vocalists and saxophone do this on "Honey Thieves (Part One)." Murphy's blending of instrumental colors puts her in the lineage of composers like Maria Schneider, Bob Brookmeyer, and especially Kenny Wheeler. Like Wheeler, she often makes voice part of overall ensemble passages in her work, like the sparkling tangle of "The Lark She Writes About."

"Indifferent Stars" has a haunting formal beauty where voice is woven into the deliberate orchestra surges that slowly lead to a delirious piano solo by Olly Chalk roiling against chanted voices. On "Honey Thieves (Part Two)," a steadily rocking rhythm underlines a blanket of voices and saxophones that eventually leads to heavy solos on electric guitar and flute. "A Grey-Coated Sand Bird" starts with a yearning melody first expressed slowly by voice and saxophone before it spreads to the entire band with the tempo increasing to a gallop. The album ends with the only non-original piece here—a hushed and intimate rendition of a Dave Frishberg song, "You Are There," with warm piano and horns supporting a poignant vocal.

Olivia Murphy uses her orchestra to create powerful music not quite like anything else heard in contemporary jazz. Her haunting melodies and majestic arrangements make her a unique voice for the times.