Ava Mendoza & Hamid Drake
Ava Mendoza is one of the United States’ most magnetic and bracing electric guitarists right now. With her love of tremolo and just enough reverb to make it seem that her instrumental attack is always arriving from across the horizon, Mendoza summons Loren Connors moodiness alongside No Wave aggression, the rhythmic restlessness she learned from South American music as a kid inside the knotty blues at the base of so much American music. Born in Miami, Mendoza eventually settled in Southern California with her family, learning about the state’s punk uprising before shipping off to Michigan to study classical guitar at a boarding school. When she took a year off to study something else, she realized how committed to music she actually was. Her life since has been a dizzying series of bands and collaborations, from the radical rock freedom of the trio Unnatural Ways to an alternately fierce and spectral quartet with Devra Hoff, James Brandon Lewis, and Ches Smith. Mendoza is also a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, releasing her 2024 album The Circular Train on his Palilalia label.
Speaking of The Circular Train, Mendoza’s solo records are where her complex tangle of influences and enthusiasms have come into special focus in recent years. She sometimes sings inside her barbed lines, her voice seeming to move between imprecations and exorcisms. Released in May 2026, Alive Alone, Alone Together is a perfect summary of her work, as she approaches seven tracks from past releases live. “Irene, Goodnight” is aching but playful, Mendoza dancing with the riff like a late-night barroom partner. “Cypress Crossing” feels like amplified and scrambled Delta blues, patterns broken by humid Southern air. On half the tracks, she improvises with Hamid Drake, one of the most accomplished and intuitive free jazz drummers working and a past collaborator to the likes of Fred Anderson, Don Cherry, and Pharoah Sanders. They find new spaces and dynamics within Mendoza’s songs, firing off drum hits and guitar riffs until they merge into one. Drake and Mendoza revisit that dynamic at Big Ears 2027.
