FM
History
The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble has been "breaking the habits of boredom and pushing beyond nostalgia into the present" for almost 20 years. Their music fuses traditional African rhythmic and melodic sensibilities with popular African American musical expression. The Ensemble's unique instrumentation - trap drums, African and Latin hand-percussion, saxophone, trombone, digeridoo, bass clarinet and kalimba - endow their music with a warm textural richness and depth. Within a framework of organic, understated compositions, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble imparts an ancestral wisdom and conjures an energy and spark rarely encountered in contemporary music.
In 1976, Kahil El'Zabar, having just graduated from the school of Chicago's legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, teamed up with tenor saxophonist and Edward Wilkerson, Jr. Wilkerson has been called "one of the most thoughtful minds in modern experimental music," and is himself the leader of the premier Windy City octet Eight Bold Souls and big band Shadow Vignettes. Kahil El'Zabar is an accomplished trap drummer, having worked with acclaimed soul, blues and R&B artists Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, and jazz greats from Cannonball Adderely to David Murray. El'Zabar is also a virtuostic kalimba player, master of Mandingo-style earth drum, balaphonist, flautist and vocalist.
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