Zoh Amba's Sun to be released 27th of June
We are so happy to welcome Zoh Amba to Smalltown Supersound!
Zoh Amba—the Tennessee-born New York-based baritone saxophonist who “mak[es] hugely profound, wildly uplifting music” (Guardian)—announces her new album, Sun, out June 27th via Smalltown Supersound and shares its lead single, “Fruit Gathering.” On Sun, Amba’s first album for Smalltown Supersound, she offers a collection of nine compositions—three of them solo —that blur the line between performance and process, where both the music and the act of capturing it unfold in real time, guided in part by improvisational recording techniques. As bandleader, Amba navigates the edges of an improvisational delta, where spiritual jazz and free folk emerge not as separate genres, but as tributaries of the same current, each flowing from a shared belief in music as a sacred force.
The decision to release Sun on Smalltown Supersound was born from a common connection to the late German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, who was both a spiritual mentor to Amba and released several records on the label. While the album is rooted in American folk traditions, it’s Brötzmann’s fearless spirit— itself an immense historical catalyst for European free jazz – that runs like a current through the ensemble’s musical collaboration and its experimental recording techniques.
For Amba however, it was important that the ensemble – consisting of Caroline Morton (bass), Lex Korton (piano), Miguel Marcel Russel (percussion) – establish deeper musical connection before the recording process took place: “We spent days just playing together, and I was trying to mentally take notes of what naturally wanted to exist in this band – before giving instructions or handing out sheet music. I wanted to see where we were all standing in life, right at that moment. From there, I started carving out the process with them,” she explains. The result is a sound that oscillates between deep modal lamentation and blasts of rapture, which is apparent on today’s single and album opener, “Fruit Gathering.” The song’s first notes emerge from an elegiacally bowed double bass as a glimpse of a new dawn.
On Sun, the morphing life cycle of each composition becomes a kind of paradigm for the ensemble, who are constantly navigating the drastic shifts in landscape – tempo, melody, key, rhythm – within a single track. It’s a tendency that also occurs within the album’s larger narrative. In a genre that is defined by risk-taking, Amba shines in venturing further out. Sun is free-form acoustic music with the energy of an electrical storm – music sanctified in the current.
Sun Tracklist
- Fruit Gathering
- Interbeing
- Ma
- Forevermore
- Seaside
- Champa Flower
- At Noon
- Like The Sun
- In Heart
Zoh Amba Tour Dates:
Thu. July 10 - Braga. PT @ gnration %
Fri. July 11- Rotterdam, NE @ NSJ Festival %
Sat. July 12 - Ghent, BE @ Gent Jazz Festival %
Mon. July 28 - Wed. July 30 - London, UK @ Cafe Oto - solo & collaborations
Fri. Aug. 15 - Oslo, NO @ Oslo Jazz Festival ^
Sat. Aug. 16 - Peitz, DE @ jazzwerkstatt Peitz ^
Thu. Sept. 11 - Rock Island, IL @ Rozz Tox %
Fri. Sept. 12 Madison, WI @ North Street Cabaret %
Sat. Sept. 13 - Chicago, IL @ Sound & Gravity Festival %
% = w/ Sun ensemble
^ = Solo