Customer Reviews

Live at the River East Art Center

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Ritual Trio for this recording consists of Kahil El Zabar on percussion, Ari Brown on sax, and Yosef Ben Israel replacing the departed legend Malachi Favors on bass. The recording is set intimately at the River East Art Center, you can almost feel you are there. For the most part, this is not as "far out" as you might suspect, Kahil's drumming is mostly performed on conga-style African drums and provides a steady underpinning, Ari Brown's sax is generally basic and fine!-fine!-fine!, and Ben Israel's rhythms don't wander too far afield either. Now, for adventure, Mr. Billy Bang scratches in avantly here and there on violin. On "Where Do You Want to Go," the combination is sheer perfection; Billy is the perfect counterpoint, where I want to go is the repeat button. Kahil's verbal testimony is pretty short so, if you prefer your music to be uninterrupted, there isn't a big impediment here, and I believe the man's message deserves to be heard.

Sometimes, the music you don't understand is the music that touches you most deeply. I've never been much of a jazz listener; I've skirted around it for years, essentially avoiding bebop in its myriad permutations, and enjoying traditional jazz, some fusion and a lot of the more postmodern artists influenced by hip hop or country, such as Medeski Martin & Wood and Bill Frisell - music that's technically jazz, but also, in some fundamental way, not. Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio falls into this category. Originally a trio but consisting of four musicians for a decade or so, the Ritual Trio features amazing, African, tribal-sounding percussion, a deep, rumbling and melodic double bass, a tenor saxophone and an electric violin. The music has lots of space and passion. It's very spiritual and soulful, develops slowly and unfolds into moments of extreme beauty and power, similar in impact to Fela Kuti maybe, or the spirit of Miles Davis when he played an improvised sort of `voodoo funk' on 1970s live records like Dark Magus-Live at Carnegie Hall and Live-Evil. (Reviewed at my blog, http://teabowl.net)