A nice current microcosm/snapshot/mini-lineage of extreme improvisation in the Americas: the trio of tenor saxist Zoh Amba (24 years old), drummer Chris Corsano (49) and electric guitarist Bill Orcutt (62), reflecting their 2023 album "The Flower School"; plus Mexican-raised alto saxist Martin Escalante (31).
Reinforcing MetalJazz's previous favorable impressions of Amba, Richard Meltzer's endorsement -- "the only thing to give me hope for the future of the yuman race in yrrrrrs" -- made the Tennesseean's follow-up L.A. appearance after last year's at Angel City Jazz Fest a cultural requirement. Amba's instant magnetism as a young pixie also stands contrariwise as a substantial credibility hurdle, one she jumped easily when the first huge gushes poured from her tenor. She did not shy from oft-cited comparisons to energy-jazz forefather Albert Ayler, whose wide vibrato and weepy arpeggios she inserted as just a small part of her vocabulary. Mostly, Amba poured out an all-enveloping bigness, often using explosive split tones and paralleling with adroit lineal deliberation the clanging, ever-moving figures of Orcutt, whose melodic base belied his Noise Movement reputation. With his old East Coast pard Corsano's cymbal-and-rim-accented drums keeping up a driving swirl, in fact, the trio came off well rehearsed and dynamic -- a raging number, a quiet one, then something freer to raise the hair. Way better than the record, no surprise. The two-thirds-capacity crowd, even if not headbanging, paid solid attention.
Martin Escalante opened with a solo set on an alto sax modified so that it could produce nothing but the most intense squeaks, shrieks & honks, almost no "notes." He went at it with head-on skill, twisting terrific screw variations into our ears for 13 minutes, with three 2-second pauses. And that was exactly enough.
PHOTO BY FUZZY BAROQUE.