by Adorjan Horvát
Margherita Fava is the kind of pianist who builds their musical world from the inside out. She treats form, groove, and texture as interconnected structural elements, and on Murrina, Fava reveals herself as an artist who creates a very engaging world. Each of the nine tracks is architected from this vantage point, with each a careful balancing of clarity and color, rhythmic intention and improvisational cohesion, ensemble conversation and structural coherence.
What makes this record compelling for jazz fans is the quality of the performances and how fully the trio embraces the logic of each piece. Fava designs environments, and the group of Brandon Rose on bass and Jonathan Barber on drums inhabits those environments with a precise, organic awareness that gives the album vitality.
Fava’s textural decisions begin with touch. Her piano sound is clean with articulate attacks when rhythmic clarity is needed, blended voice leading when she wants harmonic color to bloom, and a selective use of register that shapes the trio’s contour.
On “No Clue,” she builds the tune around cyclic rhythmic figures, but what makes the piece resonate is how her voicing density is led in response to the composition’s flow and the trio’s interactions. During her solo, she keeps the chordal movement of the melody, clearing space for Barber’s layered patterns and allowing Rose’s bass to function as an anchor and counter-voice. Texturally, the tune grows like a set of interlocking gears, each part distinct, yet turning the same mechanism.
“Intermezzo” shows another facet of her approach. Her percussive touch, dancing and agile, becomes the vehicle for translating classical material into a contemporary jazz vocabulary. The trio responds with remarkable sensitivity with bass motion, flexible time-shaping on the drums, and a piano texture that alternates between crisp melodic definition and softer harmonic underlay. The result is a recalibrated version of the original that is a reactivation of the material through jazz-based textural logic.
On “Murrina,” textures become narrative tools. Fava uses contrasting densities of open voicings that bloom into more tightly structured harmony, rhythmic chords that punctuate the groove, and sudden unison figures that snap the trio into alignment. The title track’s architecture is inseparable from its texture, each section defined by a shift in pianistic color.
Fava’s rhythmic instinct is one of her greatest strengths. She doesn’t simply play over a groove; she sculpts it.
“Satin Doll” lays this instinct into a well-known jazz standard. Her inventive rhythmic patterns underpinning the tune, giving the trio a clear directional framework. Barber keeps time and assembles the layering patterns that build tension and motion with Fava. Fava’s phrasing interacts with this structure, creating a sense that improvisation and conversation inhabit the same rhythmic world.
On “Keep On,” the design is more incremental. The tune grows section by section, a deliberate unfolding that gives guest saxophonist Bob Reynolds’ entrance a clear function in the architecture. The rhythm section recalibrates as the composition evolves, shifting pocket width and density. Fava’s comping is rhythmically precise, punctuating space rather than filling it, which keeps the form navigable even as the intensity rises.
“Foreshadow,” built originally as a triadic study, presents a rhythmic profile that is clean and modern. The groove absorbs both contemporary and Latin influences without ever feeling hybridized; instead, the rhythmic zones flow naturally from one to the next, a testament to Fava’s structural clarity. Barber and Rose guide the feel with attentive contouring as cymbal arcs, snare articulations, and subtle shifts in subdivision dance with warm bass tones and counterpoints.
Fava’s improvisations follow the same architectural logic as her compositions. Ideas unfold through motifs, rhythmic design, and harmonic pacing rather than sheer density.
In “Yarn,” her motivic development is particularly striking in its combination of heritage and today’s jazz language. She builds the solo from small melodic fragments, each transformed through contour, rhythm, or harmonic shading. The performance is patient and blues-tinted as she lets the trio breathe. This conversation with Rose and Barber influences the direction of each new gesture. There’s a sense of narrative continuity, the solo tracing a pathway rather than exploring a field.
“Satin Doll” shows her ability to rethink an improvisational space through arrangement. After the Latin-inflected head and the swing bridge, she takes her solo over a brisk swing feel that reveals her grounding in linear clarity and forward motion. Her accents sit comfortably inside the time, creating momentum without pushing, and her phrasing interacts with the trio’s swing rather than riding over it.
The trio’s chemistry is the album’s defining feature. Fava writes with interaction in mind, and the group responds with a unified sensitivity that turns each tune into a small ecosystem.
Rose supports the harmony with intention; his bass lines flow with Fava. His tone gives the trio warmth and clarity, and his solos reflect the same structural mindset as Fava’s.
Barber contributes textural and rhythmic contours. He listens in real time, shifting touch, subdivision, and density in response to Fava’s phrasing. On tracks like “Murrina” and “Yarn,” you can hear the trio’s decisions happening mid-performance: transitions tightening, grooves opening, accents forming spontaneously.
Even the brief “Murrina Reprise” reveals this chemistry. What might have been an incidental studio fragment becomes a small study in playfulness and groove intuition.
“Alter Ego,” with its expanded sonic palette, shows that the trio can adapt its collective instincts to a more modern, synth-infused landscape. Even with added textures, the core interaction remains the same: clear communication, shared momentum, and respect for form.
Margherita Fava’s Murrina is a project that reflects the coherence between composition, arrangement, pianism, and trio execution. Fava’s choices of textural, rhythmic, and structural expression are clear musical visions rooted in tradition that are articulated in contemporary language. That’s the short of it!
