Zoh Amba, Shahzad Ismaily, Jim White, Steve Gunn

BROOKLYN MARATHON @ BABY’S ALL RIGHT

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Zoh Amba

Zoh Amba is a composer, saxophonist, and flutist from Tennessee. Her music blends avant-garde, noise, and devotional hymns. Before studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music, New England Conservatory and studying with David Murray in New York, she spent most of her time writing and practicing saxophone in the forest near her home. Today, her powerfully unique avant-garde music is full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, and repeated incantations. Amba released two records in 2022, her debut record O, Sun which was produced by John Zorn and released on the prestigious label Tzadik. Zoh Amba’s second record, Bhakti features Micah Thomas, Tyshawn Sorey, and Matt Hollenberg. She has collaborated with a variety of high profile musicians such as Jim White (Dirty Three), legendary jazz bassist William Parker, Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), etc. Amba has also performed at well respected venues and festivals Roulette (NY), Ars Nova Presents (Philadelphia), Vision Festival (NY), and Angel City Jazz Festival (LA) along with a 2023 Big Ears Festival’s performance.

Shahzad Ismaily

Shahzad Ismaily was born to Pakistani immigrant parents and grew up in a wholly bicultural household. While he holds a masters degree in biochemistry from Arizona State University, he is a largely self-taught composer and musician, having mastered the electric and double bass, guitar, banjo, accordion, flute, drums, various percussion instruments and various analog synthesizers and drum machines. Ismaily has recorded or performed with an incredibly diverse assemblage of musicians, including Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Jolie Holland, Laura Veirs, Bonnie Prince Billy, Faun Fables, Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Elysian Fields, Shelley Hirsch, Niobe, Will Oldham, Nels Cline, Mike Doughty (of Soul Coughing), Graham Haynes, David Krakauer, Billy Martin (of Medeski Martin and Wood), Carla Kihlstedt’s Two Foot Yard, the Tin Hat Trio, Raz Mesinai and Burnt Sugar. He has also composed regularly for dance and theater, including for Min Tanaka, the Frankfurt Ballet and the East River Commedia. Recently he composed the score for the critically acclaimed movie Frozen River, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. He was also an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA in 2008. Currently based in New York , Ismaily has studied music extensively in Pakistan, India, Turkey, Mexico, Santiago, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco and Iceland.

Jim White

Jim White is an Australian drummer, producer, and songwriter best known for co-founding the brilliant instrumental rock group Dirty Three in the early '90s, in addition to working with Nick Cave, Will Oldham, Cat Power, Nina Nastasia, and numerous other musicians. A highly versatile, disciplined musician, his playing can be restrained and delicate (with brushes prominent) or intense and sporadic, and he's easily adapted to numerous genres, ranging from country and folk to noise rock and free improvisation. Over his four decades in music, he has become highly regarded by countless indie rock and experimental musicians, and has become a go-to player, particularly among Chicago's music community and in New York where he is based. Among his many collaborative projects are Xylouris White, a duo he formed in 2013 with Greek laouto player George Xylouris, and an improvisatory 2020 project with guitarist Marisa Anderson.

White was born in Melbourne in 1962 and formed his first band, Happy Orphans, with future Bad Seed Conway Savage in 1980. The following year, he joined a noise rock group called People with Chairs Up Their Noses, appearing on their only release, a split EP with Plays with Marionettes. He also joined the Feral Dinosaurs, a country rock group who also featured Savage. The band released an LP titled You've All Got a Home to Go To in 1985, and split up the following year. White formed another experimental rock group, Venom P. Stinger, with vocalist Dugald MacKenzie, bassist Alan Secher-Jensen, and guitarist Mick Turner, and the band would make a much longer-lasting impact than his previous outfits. The group's explosive, unconventional debut, Meet My Friend Venom, appeared in 1986, and while the act's original lineup disbanded in 1989, they re-formed in 1991 with vocalist Nick Palmer replacing MacKenzie. Following a 1992 American tour and the release of a live LP, White and Turner both left Venom P. Stinger. The two played in Aussie rock group the Blackeyed Susans for a short time, and formed Dirty Three with violin player Warren Ellis during the same year.

Steve Gunn

Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings on labels such as Matador Records, Three Lobed Recordings, Paradise of Bachelors, and RVNG. His albums represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven material, and forward thinking songwriting. Steve has steadily processed his inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Close listening reveals the influence of blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz, and psych in his continually unfolding output. His most recent record Let the Moon Be a Planet (RVNG Intl.), a collaboration with pianist David Moore of Bing & Ruth, was released in March. A record with John Truscinski and Bill Nace, ‘Glass Band’ (Three Lobed), was released in July ‘23.