Open Me: A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse Records)
Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
Released March 8, 2024
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2024
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About:
Celebrating 50 Years of The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s Legacy and Unwavering Contribution to Great Black Music. This is the new offering from Kahil El’Zabar and his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, in conjunction with the legendary group’s 50th anniversary, Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit.
Open Me is a joyous honoring of portent new directions of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble; it’s a visionary journey into deep roots and future routes, channeling traditions old and new. It mixes El’Zabar’s original compositions with timeless classics by Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, and Eugene McDaniels. Thus, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble continues affirming their indelible, half-century presence within the continuum of Great Black Music.
Open Me, El’Zabar’s sixth collaboration with Spiritmuse in five years, marks another entry in a run of critically acclaimed recordings that stretch back to the first EHE recording in 1981. The storied multi-percussionist, composer, fashion designer, and former Chair of the Association of Creative Musicians (AACM) is in what might be the most productive form of his career, and now in his seventies, shows no signs of slowing down. Few creative music units can boast such longevity, and fewer still are touring as energetically and recording with the verve of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.
The EHE was founded by El’Zabar in 1974 originally as a quintet, but was soon paired down to its classic form — a trio, featuring El’Zabar on multi-percussion and voice, plus two horns. It was an unusual format, even by the standards of the outward-bound musicians of the AACM: “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 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 soloist, highly developed and studied ensemble dynamics, an in-depth grasp of music history, originality, fearlessness, and deep spirituality.”
With El’Zabar at the helm, the band’s line-up has always been open to changes, and over the years the EHE has welcomed dozens of revered musicians including Light Henry Huff, Kalaparusha Maurice Macintyre, Joseph Bowie, Hamiett Bluiett, and Craig Harris. The current line-up has been consolidated over two decades — trumpeter Corey Wilkes entered the circle twenty years ago, while baritone sax player Alex Harding joined seven years ago, after having played with El’Zabar since the early 2000s in groups such as Joseph Bowie’s Defunkt.
For Open Me, El’Zabar has chosen to push the sound of the EHE in a new direction by adding string instruments — cello, played by Ishmael Ali, and violin/viola played by James Sanders. The addition of strings opens new textural resonances and timbral dimensions in the Ensemble’s sound, linking the work to the tradition of improvising violin and cello from Ray Nance to Billy Bang, Leroy Jenkins, and Abdul Wadud.
Open Me contains a mixture of originals, including some El’Zabar evergreens such as “Barundi,” “Hang Tuff,” “Ornette,” and “Great Black Music” (often attributed to the Art Ensemble of Chicago but is, in fact, an El’Zabar composition). There are also numbers drawn from the modern tradition, which El’Zabar uniquely arranges, including a contemplative interpretation of Miles Davis’ “All Blues.” As a milestone anniversary celebration and a statement of future intent, Open Me effortlessly carries El’Zabar’s healing vision of Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit.
Track Listing:
1. All Blues (Miles Davis) 06:59
2. Barundi (Kahil El’Zabar) 08:02
3. He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands (traditional) 04:48
4. Return of the Lost Tribe (Kahil El’Zabar) 06:39
5. Hang Tuff (Kahil El’Zabar) 06:06
6. Can You Find a Place (Kahil El’Zabar) 07:28
7. Great Black Music (Kahil El’Zabar) 07:09
8. Passion Dance (McCoy Tyner) 04:40
9. Ornette (Kahil El’Zabar) 07:20
10. Compared to What (Gene McDaniels) 08:18
11. Kari (Kahil El’Zabar) 04:49
12. Open Me (Kahil El’Zabar) 06:06
Personnel:
ETHNIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE
Kahil El’Zabar: multi-percussion, voice
Corey Wilkes: trumpet, percussion
Alex Harding: baritone sax
Featuring
James Sanders: violin, viola
Ishmael Ali: cello
Recorded in Soundmine Studios, Chicago in July 2023
Recorded and Mixed by Dennis Tousana
Mastered and Cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London
Photography by Christopher Andrew, Stoptime Live
Tapestry and Art Direction by Nep Sidhu
Review:
Over the last half-century, percussionist Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble has intersected elements from the historic jazz tradition with the tangled lines of heritage in Afro-Latin instruments and polyrhythms. El’Zabar and EHE have found a home and recorded with London’s Spiritmuse; Open Me: A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit is their sixth recording for the label in five years. The EHE lineup includes the spry El’Zabar, trumpeter Corey Wilkes and baritone saxophonist Alex Harding. It also includes guests James Sanders on violin and viola and Ismael Ali on cello. The bandleader plays a truckload of percussion instruments in a program of redone songs from his catalog and a few covers.
The opener, Miles Davis’ mixolydian “All Blues,” is introduced by sparse kalimba, baritone sax, and a single-syllable baritone vocal chant. Wilkes, using a stone mute, delivers the iconic vamp and begins soloing as Harding takes over the vamp. Strings frame the changes while El’Zabar outlines the trumpeter’s and saxophonist’s solos in subtle yet strident ringing rhythmic riffs on kalimba and marimba. He plays a drum kit on the uptempo Afro-Latin groover “Burundi.” Layered baritone saxes offer the melodic vamp, overdubbed alongside trumpet in a droning modal backdrop in a 12-bar blues motif El’Zabar winds in with claves and other percussion instruments before Ali delivers a pizzicato cello solo. “The Whole World (In His Hands)” is rendered as early, pre-Thomas Dorsey African-styled gospel shot through with organic funk, call-and-response vocal chants, layers of hand drums, and El’Zabar carrying it all in his voice. Harding’s big horn claims the bassline on “Return of the Lost Tribe,” a funk jam with killer soloing from him and Wilkes. “Hang Tuff” uses rumbling hand percussion and striated strings — including a dazzling violin solo from Sanders — under the horns. Their swinging theme crosses Ellington with Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. While “Can You Find a Place” is a gorgeous dirge with abundant space, eerie textures, and a mournful melody, the reworked “Great Black Music” composed for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, swaggers and swoons in a finger-popping noir blues delivered with strut. Speaking of swing, the knotty, hard bop head in McCoy Tyner’s “Passion Dance” staggers sax and trumpet just slightly, adding a pulse-like heft to the melody as Ali drives with hard pizzicato lines, El’Zabar flails on the kit like Roy Haynes, while keeping impeccable time before the horns begin soloing at one another. It’s fierce. “Ornette” is an homage to the great composer and alto saxophonist, playfully and respectfully referencing his Science Fiction and Skies of America period. On Gene McDaniels’s iconic anti-war anthem “Compared to What,” El’Zabar’s kalimba is buoyed first by baritone sax, then violin. His wry, moaning vocal rivals the sly passion in Les McCann’s on Swiss Movement with Eddie Harris (once El’Zabar’s employer). With Open Me, El’Zabar and company celebrate 50 years: Their contribution holds firmly to the evolving jazz tradition, yet embraces the musical and cultural lineages of its historical Pan-African roots. They indelibly document the present and gaze squarely toward the future.
Thom Jurek (AllMusic)
