Steph Richards

• DIGIPACK EDITION

For most of her career as one of the most acclaimed improvisers working in jazz’s avant-garde, trumpeter, composer and bandleader Steph Richards worked hard to make sure that her music was considered on its own terms, rather than — as is so often the case in jazz and music as a whole — in the context of her gender.

But when she went into the studio to record her upcoming album Zephyr in 2019, Richards was six-and-a-half months pregnant. That literally transformative experience shaped the concise, visceral album both in concept and in practice, forcing the thoughtful, cerebral artist to explore a more immediate connection between her body and her work.

As a whole, the resulting record is one of the trumpeter’s most intimate to date, both in its duo orchestration and in its tactile, focused expressio

PERSONNEL:

• Steph Richards - trumpet, flugelhorn, resonating water vessels
• Joshua White - piano, preparations, percussion

TRACKS:

• 01. Sacred Sea: Zephyr
• 02. Sacred Sea: Anza
• 03. Sacred Sea: Amphitrite
• 04. Sacred Sea: Nixie
• 05. Sacred Sea: Sacred Sea
• 06. Sequoia: Cicada
• 07. Sequoia: Sequoia
• 08. Sequoia: Heeyyookkee
• 09. Northern Lights: Aurora I
• 10. Northern Lights: Aurora II
• 11. Northern Lights: Aurora III
• 12. Northern Lights: Aurora IV