Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio

Percussionist Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio has made some amazing music that has a rootsy, if avant-garde, take on everything within the jazz tradition--including the music's African roots. The band has recorded as a trio, but they are at their best when they ask a friend to join in, and Africa N'da Blues follows 1999's winning Conversations (with guest Archie Shepp) with tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders as the band's Y2K guest. With Brown on piano for most of the seven lengthy cuts, Africa has a classic quartet sound, but it's the performances that are truly landmark. Sanders sounds as robust here as he did in the 1960s, and with a trio this capable and outward-looking, his playing is the most adventurous it's been in years. El'Zabar pens most of the material, but there are also telling covers of Coltrane's "Miles Mode" and the standard "Autumn Leaves."