Weds., Feb. 6 @ 8:00 p.m.in
Hallwalls Cinema
$12 general /
$8 members/students/seniors

Thurs, Feb. 7 @ 7:00 p.m. at
Buffalo Academy for Visual
and Performing Arts (BAVPA)
450 Masten Avenue near intersection of
East Ferry and Michigan
$10 suggested donation

Kahil El' Zabar (drums, percussion, voice)
Ernest Khabeer Dawkins (alto/tenor saxophone)
Corey Wilkes (trumpet/flugelhorn)

www.kahilelzabar.com

Hallwalls is proud to welcome the return of our long-time friends Kahil El'Zabar and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in celebration of both their 35th anniversary and Black History Month. The EHE will spend four days in Buffalo working with students at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. They will present a concert performance at Hallwalls on Wednesday, Feb 6th and then will perform in concert with students at BAVPA on Thursday, Feb 7th in the beautiful new concert hall at BAVPA's new state-of-the-art facilities.

The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble was formed 35 years ago. Kahil El'Zabar is the founder of the band and led its first performance at Child City Arts Center, in Chicago, in 1973. This was a year after he had returned from the University of Ghana. His goal was to combine concepts of African-American music making with the earlier roots of traditional African music and make it something new. After 35 years, this legendary band is still serving the people worldwide with their special brand of 21st century Griot music. The current band consists of the young trumpet titan, Corey Wilkes, along with Chicago Saxophone legend, Ernest Khabeer Dawkins and the award winning multi percussionist, vocalist, and composer, Kahil El'Zabar.

The EHE is now in the pantheon of jazz history. Few bands have lasted more than three decades and there are no signs of this illustrious ensemble slowing down. Their music conjures a spiritual journey to the inner self. It spans time through multiple expressions that transcend styles and genres. There is an extremely personal virtuosity to the EHE's way of making music. It appears simple on the surface, yet when one goes deeper in the music they are amazed at the density of form.

We are reaching out to our community worldwide in 2008, to collectively celebrate the triumph of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, in staying true to their mission. It is rare to witness such conviction and commitment in these times. This music has enormous history and incredible love. We are all here to make a difference; we must be about the work of our hearts. Living out your dream is the greatest honor one can express. The EHE is the real deal and they have truly done it their way! Let us celebrate the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble's 35th Anniversary now and forever. Aluta Continua!!

$15 general admission, $10 members/students/seniors
Charles Gayle (alto saxophone, piano)
Hilliard Greene (contrabass)
Michael Wimberly (drums)

www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=22764
www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=23508
www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=21513

Born February 28, 1939. Charles Gayle blew down with hurricane force - the pun is too obvious - out of Buffalo, N.Y. He drifted in and out of the first great free jazz scenes of the Sixties, playing with Pharoah, Archie Shepp, and other trailblazers. But he says now that his sound then was even more fiery and forceful than it is now, and he couldn't get a recording date. He drifted. He became homeless. He lived as a squatter in an abandoned Lower East Side tenement. He found Jesus.

He kept playing. His music retained its hard industrial edge. It sent listeners through the wall. It busted them out of the day-to-day grind into a divine ecstasy. It lifted and uplifted. He developed a tremendous facility with the upper-upper register of the tenor saxophone, so that he could take his spiritual flights to their farthest reaches. He played wherever he could; his steadiest gig was in the New York subways.

Eventually lightning struck. In the late Eighties Silkheart Records recorded three discs him featuring Gayle's ecstatic, holy holy tenor. One of them, the much-overlooked Always Born, paired him with the incomparable John Tchicai, a pairing that seemed problematic at the time but which worked much better than perhaps anyone was aware then.

After that work, and recordings, came a bit more steadily. For the enigmatic German FMP label he recorded the all-time classic Touchin' on Trane with musicians as talented and passionate as he: bassist William Parker and drummer Rashied Ali, a living connection with the Coltrane legacy that Gayle so dynamically extends here. But this disc became something of an anomaly in the Gayle discography: most of the others were much more furious. Gut-wrenching, metal-tearing, pedal-to-the-floor music.

Much of it was magnificent: Testaments, Repent, and More Live at the Knitting Factory are outrageous, outlandish sonic assaults. Testaments has a rough lyricism that is captivating; the other two make adroit use of doubled strings from bassist Vattel Cherry and William Parker on cello.

On some discs Gayle himself plays viola, bass clarinet, other oddments. His bass clarinet solos are deeply felt and generally more conventionally lyrical than his tenor blasts. He plays it to particular effect on FMP's Abiding Variations. But his chief double is piano, which he has played with increasing frequency and facility in recent years. He's even planning a piano disc loaded with standards, which could change popular perceptions of him—as could the majestic and hard-won lyricism of his tenor playing on the recent Delivered and Ancient of Days? — allaboutjazz, 2000

Hilliard Greene has been studying music for more than 30 years and has been playing professionally over twenty years. His emphasis is in classical, jazz, rock, blues, R&B as well as the music of other continents and US regions. Currently he is concentrating on solo performance.

Greene has performed and/or recorded with Jimmy Scott, currently serving as his Musical Director and with Cecil Taylor where he was Concert Master for his group ?Phtongos?. He has also worked with Gloria Lynne, Jacky Terrasson, The Inkspots, Rashied Ali, Leroy Jenkins, Jimmy Ponder, Eddie Gladden, Vanessa Rubin, Yoron Israel, Cindy Blackman, Electric Symphony, Charles Gayle, Jack Walrath, Don Pullen, Dave Douglas, and countless others.

As a bandleader produced two CD's under with his own ensemble The Jazz Expressions and a solo bass CD entitled Alone. He teaches classes at The Bass Collective in New York City as well as privately, and conducts workshops for both children and adults. Greene performs widely in the New York City area in recitals, nightclubs, and recordings, and on television and radio programs. He has appeared in major cities throughout the United and South America.

Drummer/Percussionist Michael Wimberly has said of his previous work with Wilber Morris that "Wilber and I have a truly organic rhythmic union." He adds "musical telepathy is crucial in the rhythm section in this type of music." Wimberly's purview of musical inter-action is wide. He has toured with David Murray, Charles Gayle and Steve Coleman. His composed pieces have been commissioned by the Alvin Ailey, Urban Bush Women and Forces of Nature modern dance companies and the Jeoffrey Ballet. Wimberly has also recorded with soul vocalist D'Angelo.

Asbury Hall at Babeville
341 Delaware Ave. Buffalo
$15 general admission, $10 members/students/seniors

World-renowned conductor/composer/innovator Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris conducts B.I.O. — the Buffalo Improvisers Orchestra live in Asbury Hall!

conduction:
con duc'tion (-duk'shun), n. 1. Act of conducting or conveying, as water through a pipe 2. Physics. Transmission through or by means of a conductor; also conductivity; —distinguished in the case of heat, from convection and radiation. 3. Physiology. The transmission of excitation through living tissue, esp. in a nerve.

Conduction® (conducted Improvisation) is a means by which a conductor may compose, (re)orchestrate, (re)arrange and sculpt with notated and non-notated music. Using a vocabulary of signs and gestures, many within the general glossary of traditional conducting, the conductor may alter or initiate rhythm, melody, harmony, not to exclude the development of form/structure, both extended and common, and the instantaneous change in articulation, phrasing, and meter. Indefinite repeats of a phrase or measures may now be at the discretion of the new Composer on the Podium. Signs such as Memory may be utilized to recall a particular moment and Literal Movement is a gesture used as a real-time graphic notation. Conducting is no longer a mere method for an interpretation but a viable connection to the process of composition and the process itself. The act of Conduction is a vocabulary for the improvising ensemble. In the past fifty years the international community of improvisers has grown at such a rate that it has forged its own in defining its present future. The geographic exchange of musics (not category) has enriched this community and holds it steadfast in its mission to be the medium with an appetite for expressing the moment. It is this Collective Imagination that is presenting the new challenge to technology and tradition with the hope of helping in the humanitarian need to broaden the language of communication. Here and now we have the possibility of helping to open new doors of employment to a community that has patiently awaited its turn to pave the way to the New Tradition, a product equal to the challenge.

Yours in Art,
Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris
Composer/Conductor of Improvised Music

Lawrence D. 'Butch' Morris first became known as a lyrical, round-toned (if roughly hewn) free jazz cornetist. As his career progressed, his cornet playing took a back seat to his bandleading; Morris invented a style of organized group improvisation that's been dubbed "Comprovisation," an elision of composition and improvisation. Morris' organization relied on a conducting technique that he calls "Conduction." Conduction is basically a manner of shaping an improvised performance by using hand signals (an idea that was expanded upon by the lesser-known New York saxophonist/composer Walter Thompson). Morris was originally a free jazz player. In California in the early '70s, Morris played with such notables as his brother, the bassist Wilber Morris, pianist/composer Horace Tapscott, trumpeter Bobby Bradford, and tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe. In the mid-'70s, Morris worked around New York City with the likes of baritone saxophonists Charles Tyler and Hamiet Bluiett and tenor saxophonist David Murray. Morris lived in Paris from 1976-1977, where he began recording under the leadership of others. He made his debut on disc on a record by Lowe; he also recorded with French musicians, as well as the American expatriate soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. A 1977 performance in Amsterdam with Murray's Low Class Conspiracy band was recorded and released in two volumes on LP by Circle Records. The relationship with Murray would bear further fruit; Morris continued to play and record with the saxophonist for several years. Morris began directing Murray's large ensembles, which led to the development of his Conduction technique. Murray's big band music in the '80s was marked by Morris' presence as conductor. In the '80s, Morris continued to perform and record on cornet, sometimes under his own leadership, but mostly with Murray, Lowe, and the violinist Billy Bang. Gradually, however, his manner of spontaneous composition became his primary creative outlet. In the '90s, Morris became quite well-known in certain circles for his Conductions; his work began receiving attention outside the realm of jazz. He worked with artists from other disciplines—theatre, dance, and film—and began receiving monetary support from arts organizations like the national Endowment for the Arts and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust. By the end of the '90s, Morris had established himself as a major figure in New Music, performing his Conductions and lecturing all over the world. ~ Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide

Buffalo Improvisers Orchestra:
Jenece Gerber Ð voice
Geoff Perry - violin
Mary Ramsey Ð viola
Jonathan Golove Ð cello
Greg Piontek Ð contrabass
Stuart Fuchs Ð acoustic guitar
Joe Rozler Ð piano, synthesizer
Michael Colquhoun - flutes
Mike Allard Ð alto sax
Steve Baczkowski Ð tenor sax, bass clarinet
Rey Scott Ð baritone/soprano sax, oboe
Bill Sack Ð electric guitar, prepared lap steel guitar
J.T. Rinker Ð laptop, live sampling
Dave Dewitt Ð tuba
Andrew Peruzzini Ð trumpet
Jim Whitefield Ð trombone
Ravi Padmanabha Ð tabla, percussion
John Bacon Ð vibraphone, percussion
Ringo Brill Ð djembe, congas