NOTE: Billy Bang was not able to show up for this concert (or tour), and was replaced by Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone).

The ever-prolific 'Renaissance Man' and Chicago master percussionist Kahil El'Zabar and NYC virtuoso violin legend Billy Bang will perform together in Buffalo for the first time since 1999, this time pared down to an intimate and hauntingly powerful duo setting - simply an essential concert experience.

Billy Bang (violin)
Kahil El'Zabar (drums, percussion, voice)

Kahil El'Zabar
www.kahilelzabar.com/

Internationally renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El'Zabar is considered one of the most prolific jazz innovators of his generation. Indeed El'Zabar is a true "Renaissance Man," with a musical style and content that flows from ancient Africa to the modern world. In his own words, "The spirit of one's approach comes first before the technical. All the facility in the world with nothing that comes from the heart doesn't make good music. The basis of the strength of any artistic evolution has come from ethnicity."

Even though he is fully grounded in the history and music of his African-American community, he has taken his studies deeper, ingeniously incorporating African music and instrumentation, producing a unique and wonderfully engaging sound. He credits his community with providing some direction towards African sensibility. "I grew up in a period when African-Americans, as a large body, finally started addressing our roots. With African drums there was such an appeal in the way of playing with the hands and the sense of the entire body being involved in the playing of the instrument." El'Zabar is an accomplished musician with mastery of a variety of instruments, from the elementary—congas, bongos, African drums, shekere, gongs, and trap drums—to the esoteric—balaphon, marimba, sanza, kalimba and berimbau.

Music holds no boundaries for El'Zabar, who has not only played alongside a myriad of jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderly, but was in the bands of Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone (who he also designed clothes for) and Paul Simon, as well as recording with rock bands like Sonia Dada and Poi Dog Pondering and heading up the jazz/house outfit, JUBA Collective.

Kahil El'Zabar was born in Chicago, on November 11, 1953. One of three children growing up in a South Side neighborhood where he heard music in the streets everyday - doo-wop, r&b, gospel, blues and jazz. After attending Catholic schools in Chicago, El'Zabar went to Kennedy-King College and later to Malcolm X and Lake Forest colleges. In 1973 while attending Lake Forest college, El'Zabar was given the opportunity to study mime with Marcel Marceau in Paris, but instead opted to use the money to attend the University of Ghana and study African music firsthand.

At the age of eighteen, he joined Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and by 1975 he was chairman of the organization. During the early 1970s, El'Zabar formed his own musical group, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, and later another group, the Ritual Trio, with both of which he still performs. His talents have also extended to the cinematic arena, scoring and appearing in three feature films - Love Jones (New Line), Mo' Money (Columbia Pictures) and How U Like Me Now (Universal Pictures), costarring in the feature film Savannah, and starring in two independent films - So Low But Not Alone, and The Last Set. El'Zabar was chosen to do the arranging for the stage performances of The Lion King, he has published a book of poetry, Mis'taken Brilliance and he tailors clothing both for his band and for others. From 1996 to 1999, El'Zabar organized Traffic at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, an inter-arts program featuring music and poetry. In 1991, El'Zabar was commissioned by Germany's Leverkusen Jazz Festival to present a 20-year retrospective of his work, which showcased Orchestra Infinity — a 25-piece big band formed several years ago.

El'Zabar has served as an associate professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been on the boards of several organizations, including serving as the chairman of The Sun Drummer, an African American drum society, the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, the National Task Force of Arts Presenting in Education, Campaign for Freedom of Expression, Forum for the Evolution of Progressive Arts, Chicago Blues Museum and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. He has also served as a panelist for the NEA's Commissioning and Interdisciplinary Programs. His efforts as a musician, educator, and community leader led to his being named "Chicagoan of the Year" in 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.

El'Zabar lives in Chicago. He has six children.

Billy Bang

The violin is hardly the first instrument that comes to mind when you think about jazz, but that's never daunted Billy Bang, one of the instrument's most adventurous exponents. Over the past 26 years Bang's hard-edged tone, soulful sense of traditional swing and evocatively expressive style has enhanced over two dozen albums by top names in a variety of genres, from the blistering funk of Bootsy Collins and the harmolodic groove of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society to the intergalactic uproar of Sun Ra. With more than 15 albums under his own leadership, nearly a dozen more in co-led endeavors, and five more with the String Trio of New York (which he co-founded in 1977 with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg), Billy Bang is one of the most prolific and original members of the progressive scene.

Born William Vincent Walker in Mobile, Alabama in 1947, his family moved to New York City's Harlem while he was still an infant. In junior high school he was nicknamed Billy Bang after a cartoon character, and over his initial protests, it stuck. Around the same time, his primary interest turned to music, and he took up the violin, switching to percussion in the early '60s when he became captivated by Afro-Cuban rhythms. While attending a Massachusetts prep school under full scholarship, he met and began playing with fellow-student, folk-singer Arlo Guthrie. Drafted into the army following graduation, Bang was sent to Vietnam, an experience that profoundly affected his life, often quite painfully. Returning home and radicalized, Billy became active in the anti-war movement, and by the late '60s had returned to music.

Heavily inspired by the exploratory fire of John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and the liberating energy of the free-jazz movement, Bang returned to the violin as his principal means of expression.

Attending New York's Queens College, and studying privately with renowned violinist, the late Leroy Jenkins, Bang became a key member of the dynamic New York avant-garde scene of the '70s. Forming his own group, The Survival Ensemble, and working with artists like David Murray, Frank Lowe, William Parker and the legendary Sam Rivers, Billy began to reach an international audience in 1977 with the String Trio, remaining with the cooperative ensemble for nine years. During these same years he continued to tour and record with his own ensembles, as well as genre-busting ensembles like The Decoding Society and Bill Laswell's Material (alongside guitar giant Sonny Sharrock). He even briefly led his own funk-oriented band, Forbidden Planet (with Bobby Previte), and in 1981 taught at the University of Nebraska.

He continued to work and collaborate with notables like Murray, Don Cherry and James 'Blood ' Ulmer, and in 1982 began a ten-year association with the incomparable Sun Ra, concluding with a 1992 quartet recording for Soul Note, A Tribute to Stuff Smith, dedicated to the father of the jazz violin. In 1990 Bang formed the Solomonic Quartet with trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah, and continued to freelance and lead his own groups.

Relocating to Berlin in 1996 where he lived until 2000, Bang criss-crossed the Atlantic frequently, performing all over Europe and doing five tours through the South and Midwest with percussionist Abbey Rader, three of which included tenorman Frank Lowe. He also began a regular working relationship with percussionist Kahil El'Zabar in 1996, performing in duet, and sometimes as a trio with the late, great Art Ensemble of Chicago co-founder and bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut.

Bang recorded for Canada's Justin Time Records, for which he recorded Bang On in 1997 and The Big Bang Theory in 1999. His latest CD (released in October 2001) entitled Vietnam: The Aftermath evokes and confronts the memories of his Vietnam experiences and showcases the fine compositional skills that have always marked his own recordings.

Returning to New York in 2000, Bang has continued his busy schedule, touring Europe in the Fall of 2001 with David Murray, continuing a musical interaction that has lasted over 25 years with a series of concerts and a collaborative dance work in Birmingham, England. He toured Europe in November 2001 and the U.S. in January 2002 in duet with El'Zabar; and performed in England with the fusion ensemble Sonicphonics, with whom he's worked since 1998.

A dazzling improviser, excellent composer, and provocative leader, Billy Bang remains on the cutting-edge of jazz expression.

Some publications related to this event:
June, 2007 - 2007