Kahil El Zahara Ethnic Heritage Emsemble(USA)

Although the seventy-two-year-old drummer and bandleader is a jazz veteran, he has never claimed to be mainstream. He has been a determined individualist and innovator at every point in his career. During his adolescence, he played with members of the avant-garde Art Ensemble of Chicago, studied African music in Ghana. He was a partner of free jazz greats Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, and critics have called him a "renaissance artist". He has played in a number of top-notch ensembles with artists such as Don Cherry, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stevie Wonder, but his crowning project is the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, with which he has recorded 15 albums and which he will present at Jazzinci. The repertoire of original compositions is complemented by standards and a masterfully rearranged Miles Davis composition 'All Blues'. El'Zabar is a master composer, drummer and percussionist and belongs to a rare breed of musicians whose goal is to resonate with others, listen to their teammates and not to assert their own ego.
El'Zabar was born Clifton Blackburn in 1953 in Chicago, his father was a drummer. In the late 1960s he attended AACM music association courses, where trumpeter Phil Cohran from the Sun Ra Arkestra, for example, gave lectures. In this environment, he also absorbed the influence of personalities such as Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill. In the early 1970s he found himself in Paris, where he was supposed to study with the famous mime Marcel Marceau, but instead decided to go to Ghana to study music. In 1974 he founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble with a four-piece cast, with which he connected American jazz with his African roots. He was inspired to change his name by saxophonist Fred Walker. He chose the stage name Derf Reklaw (Fred Walker spelled backwards), which interested the young Clifton Blackburn. "Notfilc Nrubkcalb - that won't work," he decided. "My mother's maiden name is El'Zabar and my great-uncle is Kahil. That was a better choice."

Since 2001, he has worked with the free association JUBA Collective, which combines avant-garde jazz with house and hip-hop. In 2022, he was nominated for a Grammy for the album A Time For Healing, which he recorded with his quartet. His latest recording, Open Me To A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit, is one of his most successful. The respected Downbeat magazine included it in its Top Ten for 2024. El'Zabar is also a holder of the noble title Sir, and was knighted by the General Council of France for global services to the arts.

Monday 30. 3. ** Bohuslav Martinů Concert Hall ** 7:00 PM ** admission 490 CZK ** advance ticket sales from 2. 3.