SoS Short Doc: Zoh Amba
ZOH AMBA

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When I was younger I thought that music was like an escape from the world, but I realized that it’s like this doorway into this great universe of beauty. I was playing the tenor outside and I didn’t know anything about music. I got completely lost in the moment, and I had tears pouring down my face. That was the moment that I realized that it could create this whole world of great sunshine and joy that wasn’t in this actual world in the music.” - Zoh Amba
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Today we’re releasing a special video with Zoh Amba, 22 year-old rising star in the avant-garde jazz scene who grew up in rural Tennessee and is now playing alongside legendary experimental musicians such as William Parker and John Zorn. The piece, filmed on a snowy day in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, features an improvisational performance and an intimate discussion about finding solace in music, mental health, coming of age in the Appalachian South and the spirituality that is at the core of her art. As a teenager, Amba discovered the saxophone and would escape from her struggles by practicing and improvising alone for hours in the forest around her hometown of Kingsport.
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“…music is everything and everything is in the music. When I get really lost in this worldly sadness, I have to remind myself of the truth of the music and the sound and get lost back into that doing well. And I'm very grateful, but every now and then the worldliness kind of creeps in and it, and it's like the mind I'm trying to learn how to tame it and, and just listen to the heart and try to go deep in there.” - Zoh Amba ?