Kahil El’Zabar
percussion, kalimba, voice

Corey Wilkes
trumpet

Alex Harding
baritone saxophone

THE EHE’S ANNUAL
BLACK HISTORY MONTH NATIONAL TOUR
WRAPPING UP AT BIRD & BECKETT
& CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS!

$30 cover at the door (cash or venmo)
byob
reservations, call 415-586-3733

As the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble wraps up its annual Black History Month tour, the Ensemble is sporting a new release, out March 8 from Spiritmuse Records, entitled “Open Me: A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit.” Open Me is a joyous honoring of potent 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.

February 28th marks the EHE’s sixth date at Bird & Beckett, starting with the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s 44th Anniversary tour in February 2017 — when we noted that,

Internationally renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El’Zabar is considered one of the most prolific jazz innovators of his generation. Indeed El’Zabar is a true “Renaissance Man,” with a musical style and content that flows from ancient Africa to the modern world. In his own words, ‘The spirit of one’s approach comes first before the technical. All the facility in the world with nothing that comes from the heart doesn’t make good music. The basis of the strength of any artistic evolution has come from ethnicity.”

Here are a couple of photos from the EHE’s 2017 Bird & Beckett debut:

And here’s a link to an article about the EHE’s 2020 Black History Month Tour, which kicked off on January 21, 2020, right on the eve of the Great Pandemic — which led to a two year hitch in the giddyup until their return last year in February 2023!

We are excited and honored
to welcome the trio back!
February 28, 2024!

Join us to celebrate 50 years of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble!

Sir Kahil El’Zabar was born in 1953 in Chicago, attended Kennedy-King and Malcolm X City Colleges of Chicago before enrolling at Lake Forest College, in Lake Forest, Illinois, and also studied at the University of Ghana.

In 1969, El’Zabar performed with Eugene Ammons in St. Louis and Cincinnati. In 1973, he founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. El’Zabar also founded Ritual Trio and the Kahil El’Zabar Quartet.

His fifty-plus album discography includes We Is — Live At The Bop Shop, Live at the River East Art Center, Big M: A Tribute to Malachi Favors, and Ooh Live among others. El’Zabar is the founder of Ooh Now, a cultural e-commerce network established in 2008. He also has served as the artistic director of the Chicago Academy of Music. El’Zabar was the subject of the documentary film Be Known: The Mystery of Kahil El’Zabar, by filmmaker Dwayne Johnson-Cochran. El’Zabar has performed with musicians including Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Nina Simone.

Kahil El’Zabar joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1970, becoming chair in 1975. In 2002, he was named percussionist of the year by the Jazz Journalists Association. El’Zabar was named the 2006 Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune. In 2008, he became the artist-in-residence of the City of Bordeaux, France, and, in 2014, was knighted by the French government, receiving the Chevalier Medal of Letters.

These are no small accomplishments.

With El’Zabar at the center, the line-up of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble has always, since its founding in 1973, been open to changes, with the current line-up coalescing in 2017. 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. Learn about their releases on Spiritmuse at this link.

Their most recent album prior to this one, “America the Beautiful”, was released in 2021. Click here to listen to an interview with Kahil on the release of America the Beautiful.

Check out the EHE’s February 23, 2023 performance at Bird & Beckett:

Celebrate with us this February 28th!

Your cover charge at the show helps us guarantee a fair wage to the musicians that work here. Individual donations from a great many generous members of the Bird & Beckett community are also necessary. If you can and haven’t, please join their number. Bird & Beckett will always be a work in progress… Thanks for being part of the solution with your dollars, ears, intellect and loyalty!