Kahil El'Zabar

Spiritual jazz legend DR. KAHIL EL’ZABAR has been at the center of Chicago’s avant-garde scene for over half a century. Since founding the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in 1973, El’Zabar has primarily been described as a percussionist, but his multifaceted musical talents go well beyond such a summary. As a bandleader, vocalist, composer, conductor, and educator, El’Zabar has nurtured an extraordinary musical universe—one rooted in Chicago’s South Side and opening out onto the cosmos. A center in himself, his gravity has pulled myriad collaborators into its expansive orbit, including heavyweights Pharoah Sanders, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Archie Shepp, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Harris, Lester Bowie, Paul Simon, Billy Bang, and Neneh Cherry among them. 

Born in the Windy City to parents who had migrated from the South, El’Zabar (née Clifton Henry Blackburn, Jr.) has enjoyed a winding career, cultivating an unequaled presence as a rare frontman on drums. At the tender age of four, El’Zabar began playing a bebop kit his father had in the basement, eventually switching to hand percussion at age fourteen. By the early 1970s, El’Zabar had begun to make a living playing as a session musician for the likes of Dionne Warwick, Donny Hathaway, and the Pharaohs, while beginning to immerse himself in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) milieu, with visionary players such as Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, and George E. Lewis all living within a few blocks of him. Recounting how Muhal Richard Abrams would pick him up in a station wagon for band practice with stalwarts like Henry Threadgill and Steve McCall, it’s no wonder El’Zabar eschewed the journeyman life of a pop-soul rhythm-keeper in favor of this bold new style’s siren call. 

As many of the group’s first wave left Chicago for New York, El’Zabar was thrust into the role of chair of the organization at the age of 22. In this same period, the young percussionist founded the now fifty-year-old Ethnic Heritage Ensemble (EHE), which he describes as “an acoustic improvising ensemble with an African base.” Though it began as a quintet, the group soon mutated into the unusual trio of percussion and two horns, a streamlined outfit for easy touring, and the result of a dream by El’Zabar, imagining an elephant’s head with a rhythm section trunk and dual brass as its ears. A symbol of luck and strength, the pachyderm emblem has served the ensemble well as it evolved through different personnel over the course of its half-a-century history, now held down with Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Alex Harding on baritone saxophone. Even a half century on, El’Zabar shows little sign of slowing down: his performances prove him to be an inimitable force, as he animates his band and audiences alike with dazzling hand drums, buoyant vocals, shamanic stage presence, and improvised conduction. His unparalleled dedication keeps alight a rich creative lineage while continuing to foster a new generation of players, ensuring this fiery musical legacy continues to burn brightly.