A month after a concert with his quartet at the Festival international de musique contemporaine de Victoriaville, the new star of free jazz Zoh Amba returns to Quebec at the invitation of the Suoni per il popolo festival, this time in duet with the prolific composer and drummer Chris Corsano, “one of the most dedicated and hardworking people I’ve met in my life”, abounds the 23-year-old saxophonist, who recorded with him and ace guitarist Bill Orcutt the album The Flower School, to be released on July 21. Even without Orcutt, will we find some of the spirit of this album tonight at the Suoni? ” Oh yeah, baby! », she gets carried away about this evening which will also feature folk revelation Myriam Gendron!
“People sometimes think I’m mean or roughbut I’m just shy in life, extremely introverted”, admits Zoh Amba, caught stealing in the streets of New York on her way to a jazz club where her presence was expected by free-jazz aficionados. .
At only 23 years old, the tenor saxophonist (and flautist) has quickly become in barely a year one of the stars of the New York scene. Her dazzling, resounding playing, moving the crowds — before her appearance at FIMAV, where she gave what we have been described as an anthology concert, Zoh gave her very first concert at the Big Ears festival, the ” Coachella” of avant-garde music, which takes place at the end of March in Knoxville, Tennessee, an hour’s drive from the village where she grew up.
“In Victoriaville, the public was discreet, but particularly attentive; the Big Ears one seemed more excited to me, probably because I’m from the area — a lady even gave me a bouquet of flowers after the performance, I was moved, “says the musician not embarrassed at all on the phone. A veritable mill of words spouted with that Appalachian accent, who sees life today with optimism and brings back, throughout our conversation, the “presence of God” in his journey marked by great loneliness.
When people write about me, everyone wants to compare me to Ayler, but they never ask me what he means to me. It is thanks to Ayler that I am still alive today. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him and his music.
“All this attention on me is a bit beyond me,” she admits. “The hardest part is not having family that I can call to talk to, when things are going well or when I’m having a hard time. Raised in poverty by her mother and grandmother, she found in jazz first, then in the saxophone, the courage to move forward, leaving home as soon as possible to study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. , then at the New England Conservatory — she abandoned her classes at the two conservatories, before going to learn in New York with the master David Murray, also an admirer of the pioneer of free-jazz Albert Ayler.
“When people write about me, everyone wants to compare me to Ayler, but they never ask me what he means to me. “ Zoh Amba wants to empty the heart, while a fire truck pierces the ambient noise of its siren while she walks: “It is thanks to Ayler that I am still alive today. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him and his music. As a child, when I had my first saxophone, I hugged him while listening to his records and crying. »
“I never tried to copy his style, but I share all the pain, the pain, the sadness he expressed in his music,” she says. Died in 1970 at only 34 years old, the friend of John Coltrane – he played at the latter’s funeral – was radically different from his colleagues, pushing jazz to hitherto unexplored places, even going so far as to project his vision in the world of experimental rock, which will be inspired by his work. “I’m not trying to copy his style, insists Zoh again. I also can’t know what it was like to be a black musician in those years, in the United States, but I recognize myself in several aspects of his life, his difficult relationship with his family, with his brother, his childhood spent in the South, the way he was welcomed in New York, it touches me. I think of him everyday. »
Zoh Amba first set foot in New York almost two years ago… to flee the city after three months. ” Too difficult. Lots of mean people. But I came back, this time for good. It took me a while to find my place, to understand how things work here, and to understand myself. What have you understood for two years, Zoh? “That you have to know how to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You have to learn to be patient. That we must always try to find God in everything, even in our most difficult moments. That you should never give up or let down the people around you. And that you have to occasionally take off your shoes and go sit in the park, in the sun, for a few hours. »
The musician has released four albums as a leader in 2022, including one on Tzadik, John Zorn’s record label, and this powerful Bhakthi, released last September. “I haven’t told anyone yet, but I recorded my new album a few weeks ago! in the company of guitarist Steve Gunn and bassist and keyboardist Shahzad Ismaily, who we’ll be seeing in a few days with Arooj Aftab and Vijay Iyers at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. “I’ve worked hard to be where I am today, I feel that I’m entering a period of my life filled with sunshine. Being a musician is a great life, really. »