Ten months on from his rhythmic tour de force Spirit Gatherer: Tribute To Don Cherry, the visionary percussionist and veteran bandleader Kahil El’Zabar celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble with his sixth effort on Spiritmuse Records in less than five years, a rich seam for the artist who now at the age of seventy remains in some of the most prodigious form of his storied career. Established like his other group Ritual Trio in the mid-seventies, before he served as the chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and fell in with the likes of Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Edward Wilkerson and Ari Brown, the ensemble continues to thrive as a trio, with the trumpeter Corey Wilkes joining the circle in the early 2000s and another frequent collaborator the baritone saxophonist Alex Harding formally signing up in 2018.
Born in Chicago where he grew up alongside Ramsey Lewis and remembers shovelling Mahalia Jackson’s sidewalk clear of snow, El’Zabar’s music has always been rooted as much in early jazz and jazz-adjacent forms as the rapid chord changes and melodic syllogisms of bebop, incorporating snatches of ragtime with its syncopated rhythms, Dixieland jazz, gospel and the great migratory force of the Delta blues. Still more than many of his contemporaries in the sometimes vaporous realm of spiritual jazz, the other defining characteristic of his sound comes from his abiding interest in African music, nourished by a year spent in Ghana as part of a student exchange programme in 1973, his immersive use of polyrhythms and expansive instrumentation giving his compositions a certain kinship with contemporary dance trends, albeit decidedly at his own leisure and pace.
As a trio from the outset the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble was meant to explore the idiosyncrasies and rhythmic possibilities inherent in the formulation of multi-percussion and voice plus two horns, with El’Zabar recalling:
I had a dream where I saw a massive elephant’s face head-on. The ears became the two tenor saxophonists back-to-back, and I then appeared between them, as though my earth drum was the elephant’s trunk in the middle. It was a powerful vision.
Sans bass and piano, the ensemble was also an unorthodox proposition, with the bandleader and composer noting that as they released their first batch of records in the early 1980s:
Some people literally laughed at our unorthodox instrumentation and approach. We were considered even stranger than most AACM bands at the time. I knew in my heart though that this band had legs, and that my concept was based on logic as it pertains to the history of Great Black Music, i.e. a strong rhythmic foundation, innovative harmonics and counterpoint, well-balanced interplay and cacophony amongst the players, strong individual soloists, highly developed and studied ensemble dynamics, an in-depth grasp of music history, originality, fearlessness and deep spirituality.
In this vein they shared a spirit of adventure with some of their contemporaries, including the world fusion group Codona which featured Don Cherry on the trombone, wood flute and doussn’gouni while Collin Walcott and Naná Vasconcelos played all manner of percussion including the hammered dulcimer, kalimba and berimbau; the drummer Paul Motian’s timeless trio with the guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano; and the Clusone Trio, improvisational Dutch japesters with Michael Moore on the saxophone or clarinet, Ernst Reijseger on cello and Han Bennink on drums.
El’Zabar has fortified the basic concept over the years through the addition of other players, like the flautist, percussionist and onetime Sun Ra collaborator ‘Black Harold’ or Atu Harold Murray for Papa’s Bounce in 1998 and the guitarist Fareed Haque on Freedom Jazz Dance the following year, while for Spirit Gatherer: Tribute To Don Cherry the trio were joined by the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra vocalist Dwight Trible and by David Ornette Cherry on melodica, doussn’gouni and piano.
Their latest Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit throws strings into the mix, with James Sanders on the violin and viola and Ishmael Ali on the cello adding new timbral dimensions to their shared cacophony and staple swing. The record opens with a winsome cover of ‘All Blues’ by Miles Davis, a twelve-bar blues which was the penultimate track on the modal jazz classic Kind of Blue, and a piece which El’Zabar previously tackled on a 1989 duet album with David Murray. Rearranging the context of the song, jettisoning its distinctive bassline and slowing the tempo down to a trot, here the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s version is steeped and contemplative but still with a sense of fun, as El’Zabar hums and thumbs his kalimba and Sanders twines his strings like a fiddle, while Corey Wilkes’ bucolic trumpet runs bring the track to a languishing close.
‘Barundi’ abounds with a genial swagger which over the course of its eight minutes waltzes, seesaws and careens while the third track on Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit introduces El’Kabar’s vocals, a summary phrase giving way to a slow-burnishing build and short trumpet phrases as the group dwells inside their rendition of the African-American spiritual ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’. ‘Return of the Lost Tribe’ is a spirited march, as El’Zabar and the ensemble return to a piece which was originally recorded by his Infinity Orchestra in 2007, a broad church of collaborators tied to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians including Malachi Flavors, Joseph Jarman, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre and Adegoke Steve Colson. El’Zabar says the track ‘intends to convey that something powerful and inspired is returning, or coming around again with inspired vigour and wisdom [. . .] Each of us possesses the ability to tap into ageless energy which can restore us and make us fresh’.
‘Hang Tuff’, another El’Zabar classic on which the percussive all-rounder sits astride the box-shaped cajón, with its headlong beats and saxophone squalls sounds like a speed run down flowering vines and through hanging gardens. Then ‘Can You Find a Place’ slows things down to an almost funereal pace, as El’Zabar’s plangent voice briefly outlines the track whose tone is then sustained by strings and an ascending trumpet melody as the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble plus Sanders and Ali trace out a quest for belonging.
Sometimes misconstrued as an Art Ensemble of Chicago composition, El’Zabar’s own ‘Great Black Music’ is pure vibes, showcasing the fine interplay between balafon and trumpet. With Alex Harding’s baritone saxophone often providing the undertow of a bass, ‘Passion Dance’ by the great pianist McCoy Tyner swings as driving percussion and horns give way to plucked cello and a winding, whinnying violin. On ‘Ornette’ the strings creep up the sides of the piece as padded percussive mots turn into ritual drums accented by shakers. And ‘Compared to What’ adopts the same palette while upping the tempo, with Harding’s baritone taking the lead on a song which holds a special meaning for the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble bandleader. Written by Gene McDaniels and first recorded by Robert Flack, but gaining renown in the summer of 1969 when Les McCann and Eddie Harris performed it at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the civil rights and anti-war protest song played a prominent role in El’Zabar’s childhood:
‘Compared to What’ was my father, Clifton Blackburn Sr.’s favourite tune. On Saturdays he would play jazz all day, and later in the evening he would scat, sing rhythms and then he and I would improvise together on the grooves that he taught me. It was all ‘Compared to What’.
‘Compared to What’ proves the final cover on an album of tunes mostly composed and recuperated by Kahil El’Zabar. ‘Kari’ is loose and open-ended with a lively saxophone solo, cymbals and percussive eddies and swirls before the squalling climax. That leaves the title track, which closes Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit with a throb and thrum, eloquent strings, woodblock percussion and a deeply simpatico groove providing the final note of mutual possibilities and shared acceptance.
