With the help of a piano trio, harmonica, string orchestra and harp, French composer Karim Maurice has turned Homer's Odyssey into a jazz epic. The journey narrated in the ancient Greek poem took Odysseus 10 years to complete; Maurice's jazz odyssey lasts just over 70 minutes but, even if its durational aspect is somewhat truncated, it is packed with the textures of surging seas, angry gods, siren songs and adversities overcome evoked in the original Will Galison's chromatic harp is the principal voice as key episodes float by on dreamlike orchestrations – ‘Blues for Nobody’, which relates Odysseus' struggle to escape the cyclops Polyphemus, has purposefully choppy and bounding rhythms – delivered by the 20-strong French La Camerata string orchestra under the direction of violinist Gaël Rassaert. The fresh textures introduced by Karin Hahn-Rassaert add yet another musical dimension on the yearning ‘Weave & Undo’, while the closing ‘Return to Ithaca’ is rich in restless drama.