Brooklyn-based jazz trio Ember is set to release their third album, August in March, via Orrin Evans’ Imani Records on August 11th, 2023.

The collective, featuring saxophonist/trumpeter Caleb Wheeler Curtis, bassist Noah Garabedian, and drummer Vincent Sperrazza, has earned high praise for it’s innovative, genre-crossing approach and profound improvisation.

The album’s title suggests a myriad of interpretations, reflecting Ember’s evocative and open-ended music philosophy. Critics highlight the band’s collective improvisational spirit as effortless, reflecting their focus on fostering an open environment where the music is shared among them and with their audience.

August in March consists of eleven concise but intricate pieces, making it an honest representation of Ember’s musical and community-oriented aspirations.

1. Suspense
2. Snake Time
3. Frank in the Morning
4. August in March
5. Angular Saxon
6. No Signal
7. Easy Win
8. Sink and Swim
9. Flotation Device and the Shivers
10. Break Time
11. Sam Cooke

Recorded at Samurai Hotel, Astoria, NY, December 3rd 2022 by David Stoller, the recording opens on the languishing beauty within Suspense and then the low slung, atmospheric Snake Time, before then lovingly bringing forth the smooth foot-tapper Frank in the Morning, the ornately sculpted, titular August in March and then we get the jaunty rhythmic jazz shapes thrown within Angular Saxon.

Along next on this dutifully impassioned new recording is the stoic No Signal and the expressioned Easy Win, and they are in turn backed by the decadent Sink and Swim, the stoically chilled Flotation Device and the Shivers, the album rounding out on the drum-fed Break Time, coming to a close on the effortless grandeur within Sam Cooke.

In truth, the meaning of August in March doesn’t allow for easy interpretation. Is it a lament over the accelerating pace of modern life? A protest against climate change? Simply a bit of lyrical wordplay, or an intentionally obscure puzzle? It could be any of those things, or all at once – Ember isn’t telling.

But the mere fact that the phrase is so evocative and open-ended, an invitation to creative examination, may be more to the point. Those are, after all, among the guiding principles of this adventurous and exploratory trio. “I think that August in March is sort of confusing but at the same time oddly poetic,” ventures saxophonist and trumpeter player Caleb Wheeler Curtis. “It connects in multiple ways to things that we care about.”

Musicians:
Caleb Wheeler Curtis – stritch, trumpet, reed trumpet
Noah Garabedian – double bass
Vincent Sperrazza – drums

Official Purchase Link