Visionary percussionist and veteran bandleader Kahil El’Zabar leads his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in celebration of the legendary jazz pioneer Don Cherry and announces new album Spirit Gatherer and previews the first track ‘Don Cherry’. The fifth of a series of Spiritmuse recordings that began with 2019’s Be Known: Ancient/Future Music [Spiritmuse KEZ001], Spirit Gatherer finds the three-person Ethnic Heritage Ensemble joined by two storied guest artists: Dwight Trible, vocalist with the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, and multi-instrumentalist David Ornette Cherry, Don Cherry’s eldest son. Performed by a group of artists who intimately understand the profundity of Don Cherry’s contribution to universal musical and artistic culture, Spirit Gatherer is a powerful, spiritualised tribute to one of the giants of twentieth century music.

Don Cherry was a true original. A pioneer of the jazz avant-garde, he first emerged as part of the Ornette Coleman group. After quickly establishing himself as a key figure in America, he eventually relocated to Europe, where he moved beyond jazz to pursue a universal spirit music. Cherry’s quest was spiritual, musical, social and political – open-hearted and profoundly humane, his life and art were dedicated to beauty and the betterment of all humanity. His music carries a crucial message for today, and Kahil El’Zabar and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble dedicate their new album Spirit Gatherer to him, both to honour his legacy and highlight his ever-growing importance.

Don Cherry is the essential, iconic, urban shaman, says Kahil El’Zabar. After doing America the Beautiful [Spiritmuse KEZ005] and speaking to the political, social times; and then believing that there has to be resolution, that’s why there was A Time for Healing [Spiritmuse KEZ007]. Then after the time for healing, you have to acknowledge the mentors that actually expressed that healing, so that we can figure out better ways to use it. And I couldn’t find a better example for now than Don Cherry to amplify that. And so that’s why we call him the Spirit Gatherer, which is the name of the album.

A legendary figure with over fifty years’ experience in jazz and improvised music (including a decade as the chair of Chicago avant-garde collective the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), El’Zabar brings a powerful heritage and a wealth of experience to his art, directing the songs on Spirit Gatherer with kalimba, voice, or cajon. As well as several originals by the leader, the songs selected for Spirit Gatherer draw their power from Don Cherry’s legacy, and reach out the spiritualised milieu in which he worked and lived. The music calls forth the sanctified universal folklore of Cherry’s music and refracts it through the deeply grounded Africentric modal grooves synonymous with El’Zabar’s recent recordings. Cherry’s first great collaborator, Ornette Coleman, is represented by his deathless composition ‘Lonely Woman’; in tribute to Cherry’s favourite composer, Thelonious Monk, the band tackle ‘Well You Needn’t’ with a low-key, funked-up read; and Coltrane, with whom Cherry collaborated at various times, is evoked through a musical prayer to A Love Supreme.

As ever, El’Zabar leads the album on multi-percussion, steering the group and setting the pace with his trademark combination of peerless rhythmic invention, melodic subtlety and grounded spiritual direction. Support from regular frontline collaborators Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Alex Harding on baritone sax builds out the sound, with Wilkes channelling the quicksilver improvising brilliance of Cherry himself while Harding embarks on deep-rooted thematic investigations. But Spirit Gatherer is lifted even higher by the presence of two illustrious guests: Dwight Trible and David Ornette Cherry.

Don Cherry’s eldest son, the multi-instrumentalist, educator and composer David Ornette Cherry, has an intimate familial understanding of his father’s musical philosophy. He played with Don from the age of sixteen, and has collaborated with many jazz greats including Billy Higgins, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. His latest release, ‘Organic Nation Listening Club (The Continual), was released on Spiritmuse in late 2021, to much critical acclaim.  On Spirit Gatherer, he adds spiritual warmth and energy on piano and melodica, and invokes the instantly recognisable language of his father’s music when playing douss’n’gouni, the West African hunter’s harp.

Vocalist Dwight Trible is a key figure in Los Angeles renowned community jazz collective, the Pan Afrikan Peoples’ Arkestra. Founded by Horace Tapscott, the Ark has been the seed-bed for three generations of Los Angeles jazz musicians, and it grew out of the same Central Avenue soil that Don Cherry himself was rooted in. Trible, a vocalist who combines both operatic power with deepest blue jazz sensibility, brings electrifying presence and lyrical richness to the session.

Personnel:

Kahil El’Zabar – multi-percussion / balafon / kalimba / voice

Corey Wilkes – trumpet/ spirit bowls/ percussion

Alex Harding – baritone sax

Dwight Trible – voice

David Ornette Cherry – piano / melodica / douss’n gouni

London live date: Don Cherry Tribute with Ethnic Heritage Ensemble with members of the Cherry Family and special guests
at EFG London Jazz Festival – November 20, 19.30

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

Album: Spirit Gatherer: Tribute to Don Cherry

Release date: March 10