Jazz Articles about Kahil El'Zabar

Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Open Me: A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit

by Chris May
February 23, 2024

The first few bars of Open Me: A Higher Consciousness Of Sound And Spirit promise the listener is in for a treat. Corey Wilkes' muted trumpet plays Miles Davis' “All Blues" counterpointed by Alex Harding's rugged baritone saxophone and Kahil El'Zabar's ankle bells and kalimba. Here is Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in all its enchanting bare-bones singularity, barely a year since the release of the masterpiece Spirit Gatherer: A Tribute To Don Cherry (Spiritmuse). Eighty minutes later, the ...

Gent Jazz 2023

by Martin Longley
August 18, 2023

Gent Jazz Festival Gent, Belgium July 9-15, 2023 It looked dire in 2022. The Gent Jazz festival, a two-decade integral element in the cultural life of this wondrous Belgian city, was declared bankrupt, along with Jazz Middelheim in Antwerp, which had an even more august history. Amazingly, it's still here in 2023, just as strong artistically, and looking like it just pulled in larger crowds than usual. The Flemish booking agency Greenhouse Talent stepped ...

Kahil El'Zabar: What It Is!

by Howard Mandel
June 23, 2023

Behold and behear: What It Is!, the 58th recording to feature composer-drummer/percussionist-bandleader-music director and interdisciplinary arts activist Kahil El'Zabar. The album debut of a six-year-old band comprising three Generation Next players who've emerged from the school of Chicago's renowned AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) with chops benefitting from 59-year-old Kahil's mentorship, What It Is! is an hour of now-jazz that looks to the future while embracing the past. It's a statement of the joy of interactive play, ...

Kahil El'Zabar: Quiet Shaman of Spiritual Jazz

by Chris May
April 20, 2023

Percussionist, kit drummer and composer Kahil El'Zabar founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble back in 1977. The group's sixteenth album, the gritty, groovecentric and exquisitely lyrical Spirit Gatherer: Tribute To Don Cherry (Spiritmusic), will be released on April 21, 2023. The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble has seen relatively few personnel changes during its long history. El'Zabar, who began a decade-long stint as chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) aged only 22 years, goes in ...

Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Spirit Gatherer

by Chris May
April 7, 2023

Anyone who was chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians for a decade knows a thing or two about keeping a group of independently minded artists focused on a common goal. Drummer and percussionist Kahil El'Zabar continues to demonstrate that with his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, an acoustic, improvising trio with an African foundation that has been recording since 1981. Most of the musicians who have passed through the group have been longtime members. The 2023 lineup comprises ...

Novara Jazz Weekender

by Luciano Rossetti
December 11, 2022

Kahil El'Zabar, Kyoto Jazz Sextet, Peter Somuah, Kevin Eubanks & More New Releases

by Ludovico Granvassu
May 10, 2022

Music from garages, cyberspace and outer space, tributes and collaborations, and all around good energy in this set...Happy listening!PlaylistBen Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Wolcott Curran Collective “Any Number of Things" Any Number of Things—Single (Clockwork) 0:16 Host talks 4:18 Kahil El'Zabar Quartet “Eddie Harris" A Time for Healing (Spiritmuse) 5:23 Host talks 13:09 Kyoto Jazz Sextet feat. Takeo Moriyama “Father Forest" Succession (Universal) 14:18 Kevin Eubanks, Orrin Evans “Novice ...