Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit

Album review

Fifty years ago, Chicago percussionist, composer and bandleader Kahil El'Zabar drew on his affiliation with the free jazz collective the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) to found the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. Built, El'Zabar has explained, "to combine concepts of African American music with its earlier roots in traditional African music, to produce new motifs and sounds true to their origins yet firmly pointed in a new artistic direction of enlightenment and deep listening," the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble came together after El'Zabar graduated from nearby Lake Forest College and started playing in the Chicago free jazz scene.

That world was rich with talent: Phil Cohran, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill all earned early attention through the AACM. A half-century later, that music still resonates in contemporary Chicago, which is in the midst of another jazz renaissance. Work based on ideas cultivated by El'Zabar, Braxton, Threadgill and others has helped fuel the scene.

El'Zabar's new Heritage Ensemble record, Open Me – A Higher Consciousness of Spirit and Sound, presents a dozen percussion-heavy songs old and new, connecting ancient and modern, blues and chants, protest and celebration. A testament to the percussionist's influence and drive, and the enduring nature of his creative quest, Open Me captures a 70-year-old creator whose muse has remained as determined as the bells he foot-taps in time on album opener "All Blues." A constant presence, those bells set an unhurried, conga-heavy groove to support the cool 1959 Miles Davis classic. This is patient jazz, the kind not so much driven by testosterone as its after effects.

Savoring the Black spiritual "The Whole World," El'Zabar sings about a devoted God who "has the whole world in his hands" as Alex Harding's baritone sax, James Sanders' violin and Corey Wilkes' trumpet offer a tight hold behind him. Sanders' violin is a recent Ethnic Heritage Ensemble addition, and it complements and contrasts with Wilkes' trumpet across the album. Throughout, El'Zabar works various hand drums as if wired to a metronome, while his voice hums, chants and, on the cover of the classic protest song "Compared to What," sings of a time when the "Slaughterhouse is killing hogs/ Twisted children are killing frogs/ Poor dumb rednecks rolling logs/ Tired old lady kissing dogs."

"Can You Find a Place," a funeral dirge that doubles as a blues, ponders the eternal. "Can you find a place where there's peace and happiness?," wonders El'Zabar as Wilkes pushes air through a muted trumpet, Sanders guides his bow across a pair of mournful strings and someone or something blows wisps of breath through a faint woodwind. When Wilkes and Sanders tangle horn and violin on "Barundi," El'Zabar eases back on his percussion to allow them space to work. Working drums and bells, he does this throughout the album—a master craftsman who's built a whole world with his hands. © Randall Roberts/Qobuz