Drummer Elé Salif Howell, a Bay Area native, plays Monterey in Chief Adjuah’s band on the Jimmy Lyons Stage Friday the 27th… but you can catch this young lion of jazz close to home at Bird & Beckett on Tuesday the 24th and Wednesday the 25th!

We first heard Eli here on two dates in 2015/2016 when he was about 14 years old and he’s been here four more times since last December. We were pretty darned impressed by him in those early dates and have been absolutely floored now that he’s fully matured as one of the great drummers working in jazz today — touring for some years now with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and also the past couple of years with the New Orleans based trumpeter Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah; he was recently on tour with vocalist Jaqui Naylor and pianist Art Khu. He’s a busy fella, and for good reason. A truly magnificent and supple drummer!

Tuesday night, the 24th at 7:30pm, Elé brings his Chief Adjuah sectionmates Ryoma Takenaga on bass and Cecil Alexander on guitar for two sets of high energy music guaranteed to please and amaze you.

And Wednesday night, the 25th at 7:30pm, Elé and Ryo are back in a trio led by the superb and charming pianist Art Khu.

Art tells the story that when Elé was about four years old, Elé’s parents hired Art to teach him music. Art was taken into Elé’s room, where he witnessed this little kid running full tilt from drum kit to keyboard to saxophone and back and forth, playing up a storm on all of them. After Art had been taking in the kid’s dervish-like music-making whirl, Elé suddenly became aware of the adult spectator and froze like a startled deer for a brief second then dove right back in, paying Art no more attention.

At the break Wednesday night, you might enjoy chatting with both Elé  and Art about the years Elé spent under Art’s tutelage, a relationship that continued alongside Elé’s years-long participation in the jazz education program offered to talented Bay Area youth at Oakland Jazz Workshops under the direction the late trumpeter Khalil Shaheed, an invaluable institution that continues now under bassist Ravi Abcarian, with many fine Bay Area musicians, including Elé’s dad Richard, shaping the emerging generations. Apprenticeship to the many master African musicians here in the Bay Area made an equally enduring imprint on Elé’s artistry.

(Mark your calendar for October 11th, when Elé’s dad, the towering saxophonist Richard Howell, is here in the Empyrea Trio with Ian Dogole and Kash Killion! The elders speak! We listen!)