Sam Amidon

When Sam Amidon flew to Los Angeles in the winter of 2024 to collaborate with Sam Gendel, he had a deceptively complex plan for their session: that is, he had no real plan at all. Amidon and Gendel had long been two members of a mutual admiration society. When Amidon first saw Gendel play at his now-fabled residency at the Hollywood Italian restaurant Pace years earlier, he was wowed by Gendel’s open-ended enthusiasm and stylistic vim, plus charmed by his invitation to sit in on violin, though he didn’t know much about making ‘jazz’. Gendel, too, had been an ardent fan of Amidon’s voice and flexibility since seeing him on YouTube nearly two decades ago. But what, exactly, were the New England folk musician now living in England and the pedal-hopping polyglot saxophonist going to do for the better part of a week in Gendel’s Venice home? Neither exactly knew.

Amidon offered up two ideas. First, they could simply play, pursuing whatever ideas felt good as they jammed. Or, perhaps, they could tinker with a batch of interpretations Amidon had been building, a loose set of somewhat familiar tunes. Gendel’s eyes and imagination lit up with the latter idea, or at the chance to help Amidon in his decades-long quest to recontextualise what it means to sing a folk song or make folk music. When Amidon left Los Angeles just days later, the bulk of Salt River – his debut for River Lea Recordings / Rough Trade and a radical reintroduction to the possibilities of Amidon’s music – was done.

Presented by Hey! Manchester and Please Please You

This is a 14+ event. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult