COURTEST OF KAHIL EL'ZABAR Influential percussionist Kahil Elâ Zabar has formed a trio of legendary experimental musicians called the New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. He says of the trio: thereâ ll never be artists with this particular experience making music again." ( key )
POSTED: 01/26/2016 03:00:00 PM PS
The economics of the road are harsh and unforgiving, which is why Kahil El'Zabar decided to leave his two Ethnic Heritage Ensemble confederates back in Chicago for a recent gig in New York City, forgoing the cost of plane tickets and hotel rooms.
Rather than traveling with the younger musicians, he recruited baritone saxophonist/clarinetist Hamiet Bluiett and trombonist Craig Harris, two New York-based longtime collaborators with similarly distinguished records as jazz adventurers. The concert prompted El'Zabar, a pioneering jazz percussionist, to reconceive the band. Re-christened as the New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, the powerhouse trio proudly celebrates its deep ties to Chicago's grass roots improvisational/experimental music outfit, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
"In that New York performance I had an epiphany," says El'Zabar, 62. "If you think about musicians like Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake, Roscoe Mitchell, Craig and Bluiett, there's probably less than 20 guys still living who came though the late 1960s playing this music. Now is the time when these great players from this particular community of creative improvisers are in their heyday, and there'll never be artists with this particular experience making music again."
In keeping with the entrepreneurial and self-producing ethos of the AACM, El'Zabar has engineered an impressive run of gigs around the region over the next two weeks billed as the Super Healing Tour, starting Saturday at Oakland's Eastside Cultural Center. The New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble also plays in Vallejo, Santa Cruz and San Francisco on the tour (the trio closes out the Bay Area run with a Berkeley Hills house concert on Feb. 6: harry@fullplatemedia.com).
read more: http://news360.com/digestarticle/jnQ2htcPr0KXJoT-nsDqsA
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