Jazz Articles

Afro-Semitic Experience: Plea for Peace

by Joel Roberts
January 25, 2007

As a Jewish guy married to an African woman and with a new baby boy we like to refer to as “our little Jewfrican, the music of the Afro-Semitic Experience resonates in my household. When we first saw them perform a few years ago at Tonic, we said, “The Afro-Semitic Experience... hey, that's us. As the group's name suggests, it's dedicated to exploring the deep connections between the African and Jewish musical traditions. If that sounds a ...

David Chevan: The Days of Awe

by Elliott Simon
December 10, 2003

With the Afro-Semitic Experience, bassist David Chevan and pianist Warren Byrd use jazz to entice African American and Jewish spiritual music to meet as brothers. On Chevan's first solo effort, The Days of Awe , he instead chooses to filter Jewish High Holy Day melodies through a multifaceted “jazz prism." The outcome is highly accessible music that retains its original dignity. Six of the nine pieces are from the repertoire of Cantor Yoselle Rosenblatt (1882-1933), arguably the most famous Jewish ...

Warren Byrd/David Chevan: This Is The Afro-Semitic Experience

by Mark Corroto
June 1, 2002

This Is The Afro-Semitic Experience, well maybe and I then ask where do you file it? Jazz? Jewish music? Or perhaps Gospel/Klezmer/Nigunim/Spiritual/Swing? I prefer under Duke Ellington’s good music/bad music categorization.

This project of bassist David Chevan and pianist Warren Byrd brings together the musical traditions of Jewish-Americans and African-Americans to create a sacred music that would be to Mr. Ellington’s liking. Chevan and Byrd have collaborated before along these lines on the 2000 duo Let Us ...

David Chevan and Warren Byrd: Let Us Break Bread Together

by AAJ Staff
February 1, 2001

The title of this disc--along with its subtitle, “Further explorations of the Afro-Semitic experience"--may suggest difficult listening. (Ceremonial, restrictive, and heavy are a few words that may come to mind.) But rest assured, that's not at all the case. Let Us Break Bread Together is more a joyous celebration of diversity than it is any kind of solemn piece of gravity.

Pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan work together on these duo improvisations, melding a variety of approaches into ...