Kahil El'Zabar

Since the 1970s Kahil El'Zabar has built a reputation as a percussionist, drummer, composer, and bandleader whose output marks him as a prolific jazz innovator. Critics have labeled the Chicago native a renaissance man whose approach fuses folkloric, spiritual, and musical traditions rooted in ancient Africa with contemporary global sounds and cultures. The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble and Ritual Trio serve as primary outlets for his ideas, yet he has also released a steady stream of solo and collaborative recordings. He established both groups, which continue to perform, shared stages with Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderley, appeared in ensembles led by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone (for whom he also created clothing designs), and Paul Simon, collaborated with indie rock acts, and directed the pioneering jazz/house collective JUBA Collective. Landmark releases encompass the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s first album, Three Gentlemen from Chicago from 1981, the Ritual Trio’s 1985 debut The Ritual, and Africa N’Da Blues issued in 2000 with Archie Shepp, Ari Brown, Malachi Favors, and Pharoah Sanders. Transmigration, his 2007 solo project, was praised for opening a fresh phase in the veteran musician’s career. Black Is Back, released in 2014, revealed a more open dimension of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s sound, while the 2017 Dwayne Johnson-Cochran documentary Be Known: The Mystery of Kahil El Zabar centered on El’Zabar’s life and work.

Born Clifton Blackburn in Chicago in 1953, El’Zabar grew up as the son of a drummer and began playing music while still young, performing with members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago during his teenage years. In 1968, at age eighteen, he joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. During the early 1970s, while enrolled in college, he received an offer to study mime with Marcel Marceau in Paris but chose instead to travel to Ghana to study music and African cultures. After returning in 1973 he formed the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and two years later he assumed the chairmanship of the AACM. His first appearance on record came in 1980 with Infinite Spirit Music’s Live Without Fear. Because no American label would record the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, their initial three albums appeared in Europe: Three Gentlemen from Chicago on Germany’s Moers Music in 1981, Impressions on Italy’s Red Records in 1982, and Welcome on England’s Leo Records in 1984. Sound Aspects issued the Ritual Trio’s first two albums, The Ritual and Sacred Love, in 1985, followed in 1986 by Another Kind of Groove, which featured Billy Bang. Throughout this period El’Zabar toured extensively, performing more often in Europe and Asia than in the United States. As the decade ended he released his first album under his own name, Golden Sea, recorded with David Murray, and received the commission to arrange music for the stage production of The Lion King.

Activity intensified during the 1990s, when El’Zabar issued at least seventeen albums bearing his name, among them the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s Dance with the Ancestors from 1993, The Continuum from 1997, and Freedom Jazz Dance, recorded with guitarist Fareed Haque in 1999. His association with Chicago’s Delmark label began in 1994 with the Ritual Trio’s Renaissance of the Resistance and continued with Big Cliff, featuring Billy Bang, in 1995, and Conversations in 1999, again with Archie Shepp, Ari Brown, and Malachi Favors. He also ventured into acting, appearing in the films Mo’ Money and Love Jones while composing the score for How U Like Me Now.

The new century opened with three simultaneous releases in 2000: One World Family with Murray, the Ritual Trio’s Africa N’Da Blues featuring Archie Shepp, Ari Brown, Malachi Favors, and Pharoah Sanders, and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s Ka-Real. El’Zabar also formed the trio Tri-Factor alongside Bang and Hamiet Blueitt; the group recorded The Power for CIMP in 2000 and If You Believe in 2002. Regular tours took him across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Four additional albums appeared under his leadership or co-leadership during the decade, including 2001’s Spirits Entering with Bang. In 2004 the Chicago Tribune named him Chicagoan of the Year. Further releases included Love Outside of Dreams with Murray and Fred Hopkins, followed by Transmigration in 2007. Filmmaker Dwayne Johnson-Cochran documented the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble during a Black History Month tour, though the resulting film would not surface for another ten years. Both the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble and the Ritual Trio remained active; the former issued Hot ’N’ Heavy in 2007, Mama’s House in 2009, and Black Is Back in 2014, while the latter released Big M: A Tribute to Malachi Favors in 2006 and Ooh Live with Sanders in 2008.

In 2010 the Ritual Trio delivered The Ancestors Are Amongst Us for Katalyst, after which the Kahil El’Zabar Quartet, featuring tenor saxophonist Kevin Nabors, pianist Justin Dillard, and bassist Junius Paul—all younger AACM members—issued What It Is! on Delmark. Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnics, with Nona Hendryx, released It’s Time in 2011. The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble marked its fortieth anniversary with Black Is Back on Katalyst in 2014. El’Zabar’s music increasingly incorporated hip-hop and other urban influences, expanding his aesthetic to encompass the full range of sounds associated with the African Diaspora. Subsequent years found him engaged in academic work alongside continued touring and composition.

Johnson-Cochran’s documentary finally appeared in 2017 under the title Be Known: The Mystery of Kahil El Zabar and received widespread praise on the festival circuit. Two years later El’Zabar began a relationship with the U.K. label Spiritmuse Records, resulting in the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s Be Known: Ancient / Future / Music, which earned enthusiastic notices from independent British outlets and from European and American publications alike. His second Spiritmuse release, the 2020 solo album Spirit Groove, featured Murray, upright bassist Emma Dayhuff, and Justin Dillard on synth, piano, and organ. Later that October, timed for the American election season, he issued the reflective, topical America the Beautiful. The recording employed an expanded ensemble of woodwinds, brass, strings, and Afro-percussion that included Corey Wilkes, Tomeka Reid, James Sanders, Josh Ramos, Miguel de la Cerna, Ernie Adams, and Hamiet Bluiett, to whom the album is dedicated as his final recording. Alongside a distinctive reinterpretation of the title track rendered through layered harmonies and interlocking rhythms, El’Zabar presented radically reworked versions of Charles Wright’s “Express Yourself,” the Bee Gees’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” and Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue,” together with original compositions such as “Freedom March,” “Jump and Shout (For Those Now Gone),” and “That We Ask of Our Creator.”