Customer Reviews

Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio Live at the River East Art Center

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I suppose I could have rated this slightly lower if I'm considering the general public, because I suspect that there would be a lot of people that would find this not to be their cup of tea, so to speak. Well, I can't write a review for these folks because I'm not one of them. I love this DVD.

Let me get the "bad" out of the way first.

There are some unfortunate artistic decisions made with camera angles that at times made me cringe. The whole hand held, angled zooming in camera technique reeks of MTV style editing, and is so out of place here, you might say "What the F*&&?" like I did over and over again. Fortunately things calm down, camera wise, and the actual performances are the focus. And what performances they are.

Mr. Zabar's 10 minute Kalimba intro with a tamborine duct taped to his leg to hold the rhythm is insane. It's a lot of fun to watch, and I kept thinking that my legs would be sore after stomping it up and down for somewhere close to 14 minutes.

The next song has Kahil El'Zabar moving to trap kit, and he proceeds to demonstrate just what an intricate and complex, powerful, yet completely in control drummer he is. This is some of the best drumming I've heard. I know that sounds like hype, but Seriously, the dude's sick on drums.

His drum solo is sort of like the aural equivalent to a negative of a photo: dark where there should be light, Sparseness where there should be density. Great stuff. I think a lot of drummers would have been tempted to fill things in with lots of splashy cymbal work, but Kahil El'Zabar seems to be the zen master of restraint. He can get as crazy as anybdody, but there's always this underlying structural logic to his seeming randomness. Maybe it's just me...

THEN to make things better/worse, he switches to African drum, and proceeds to tear THAT up.

Let's see, so that's kalimba, trap drums, and African drums all in one set. And he plays them all WELL. Incredible.

The other musicians are all jaw dropping good as well.

Ari Brown's sax sound is pure soul and thunder. He seems to kind of sit on some small clusters of notes, and then slowly he starts to move away from the tone center, eventually climaxing to an explosion of ideas and sound, the whole time looking placid. Fantastic musicianship.

Billy Bang is as usual his incandescent self. He also seems to enjoy starting from somewhere familiar and then venturing out. However, with Billy Bang, you never know when the train's going to jump the tracks, and when it does, it's very fun to watch. He revels in these chaotic moments that would scare a lot of other musicians, yet he always remains in control of what looks and sounds like pure anarchy. Guy's a genius. Somebody nominate him for a MacArthur fellowship already.

Yosef Ben Israel is a rock. His rhythm is as strong as the current of a large river, and his playing always sounds like deep earth. He makes it look effortless. I imagine that there are a lot of bass players that would love to be able to glide over, through, around, and under a groove like he does with as much ease as he seems to be at. Also a genius. Scary talent.

There's a mood that permeates this whole concert, and I only found out later that Malachi Favors had recently passed. Well they are all playing with incredible emotion here, and it shows up in their playing.

Ignore some of the "artsy" camera work, and if you're a jazz musician, be prepared to take down some notes, because these guys are ready to school you, and class is IN. Love it.