Passionate free renderings of soulful, spiritual music from a young and up and coming tenor sax player who just recently hit the scene. Recalling David S. Ware, Albert Ayler, and David Murray who she recently studies with Amba shows great promise and direction. Her stablemates are some of the best both young and old free players. Highly encouraging for all music loving people.
The 73-year-old Edwards — a percussive dynamo who has worked with free-jazz titans including Ware, Cecil Taylor and Charles Gayle across a nearly 50-year career — was struck by his musical chemistry with Amba from their first performance together. “She was the perfect partner for me,” the drummer said. “It reminds me of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, how they dance so well together.”
Sorey described Amba as a “fearless” improviser. He explained that while first-time free-improvised sessions often begin tentatively, theirs for “Bhakti” quickly reached peak intensity. “With Zoh, the way that started off — where it’s just, ‘OK, here it is. This is who I am. Let’s go there,’” he said, “that’s something that I don’t really encounter too regularly.”
For Amba, collaborating with luminaries like Edwards and Sorey — as well as the trailblazing saxophonist-composer John Zorn, who produced “O, Sun” and cameos on the record; the eminent bassist William Parker, who plays on “O Life, O Light, Vol. 1,” another of Amba’s 2022 albums; and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase — once seemed unlikely. She grew up in Kingsport, Tenn., near the Virginia border, with a single mother who had Amba and her twin brother at 18.
“Kingsport is, like, middle of nowhere,” Amba said. “We have a big chemical plant that explodes once a year. I went to a high school, 12 people in the class, very tiny, and the mascot was the Rebels; the school flag was the Confederate flag.”
Although very often Amba’s inspiration by the music of Albert Ayler is mentioned (which is there, of course), to me the influence of David S. Ware’s sound is even more obvious. Amba takes on Ware’s spirituality and his fondness of playing a melody here and there, which makes her trio/quartet’s music very accessible, even by free jazz standards. Although by no means traditional, the music’s combination of ecstasy, minimalist repetition and a penchant for drama create an almost incredible dynamic musical entity. “Altar Flowers“, the opener, begins with harsh, torn, massive and wild notes. However, Amba’s lines are also breathy and playful, while Sorey and Thomas segue into a wry, droning gospel sound (you’d pay good money if William Parker had been on bass - that probably would have been icing on the cake). What follows is an interesting tension between Amba’s vibrato-rich sound and the intricate chord voicings that Thomas uses. Sorey’s drumming is so precise, so clear, and so bright that he alone could light up the sonic space. One can imagine what this does in combination with Amba’s saxophone and Thomas’s exploding arpeggios: it’s like a bunch of sparklers burning at all ends. In the first two tracks, Amba, Sorey and Thomas keep these sparkler ends burning in a constant game of readjustment between consonance and dissonance, clustering and purposeful dissolution, especially at the end of “Altar Flowers“, when Amba mercilessly overblows her tenor using polyphonic squeals, only to have it all mound into a very tender piano/drums phase. Flitting tenor section lines combined with spiky guitar notes open “Awaiting Thee“, the 20-minute closing track. Ringing piano chords, condensed tenor screams and chopped chords are the main ingredients for the piece. Matt Hollenberg has a jazz metal background, which he definitely brings in here. The hell that the trio has unleashed in the first track is amplified by Hollenberg’s presence. What actually sounds like an impossibility is an amazing gain in timbres and dynamics, in structure with simultaneous emotionality. A worthy conclusion to a great record.
Amba's recorded releases, which have come thick and fast, attest to her talents. Moreover, her collaborators validate her talents. She has recorded with Francisco Mela on Causa Y Efecto (577 Records, 2022), Mela and William Parker on O Life, O Light (577 Records, 2022), and here with pianist Micah Thomas, drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and guitarist Matt Hollenberg.
The nearly 30 minute "Altar—Flower" opens with a conflagration of sound; Amba's tenor blasts forth with an ominous tone, joined by Thomas' roiling piano and the turbulence of Sorey's drums. After Amba ignites the flame here, the intensity never settles, even in the quiet moments. Thomas' piano is free to fly, delivering cascades of energetic notes, which feed back to the saxophone's plaintive wail. Much like John Coltrane's late career escape velocity sound, Amba taps into the same transcendent energy. Ayler's sweet temper and vibrato is mined with the opening of "The Drop And The Sea." The saxophonist, plus Thomas and Sorey then magnify the fervor by nurturing their flame into another conflagration of sound. "Awaiting Thee" adds avant—metal guitarist Matt Hollenberg to the mix. His electricity takes the trio to another level of intensity, pushing all towards a musical event horizon. In other words, Zoh Amba's sound threatens to reach said escape velocity, i.e. transcendence.
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