kahil el'zabar

Kahil El’Zabar, Spiritual Jazz’s Dapper Bandleader, Keeps Pushing Ahead

At 70, he is releasing his 18th album with the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble to celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary and his role in the music’s lineage.

@TheNYtimes

The Amazing Musical Journey of Kahil El’Zabar

For 50 years the jazz instrumentalist and composer has reinvented American music

@Spin

Kahil El’Zabar: Celebrating the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble at 50

The occasion needed some fire. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, percussionist, cultural torchbearer and bandleader Kahil El’Zabar sat for a photo shoot in his expansive creative workspace in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood.

@ Downbeat

The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble is 50. But bandleader Kahil El'Zabar is more Interested in the next 50 years

@ Chicago Trubune

The Chicago percussionist, bandleader, and composer offers a moving, frequently ebullient album that doesn’t shy away from the terrors of America’s past and present while managing, somewhat incredibly, to find hope in the country’s future

@ Pitchfork