Kahil El'Zabar's Lively Spirit Live on Vinyl

The master percussionist's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble latest spiritual thrill

Two years ago in this space, I reviewed an album by Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit. It was, and is, a terrific album (I scored it 9 for music, 11 for sound) by an all-too-neglected composer-arranger-percussionist who’s been active for a half century and still having a merry, spiritually rich time of it.

Now comes a follow-up of sorts, Let the Spirit Out, on the same label (Spiritmuse Records, based in London), and while it falls a bit short of its studio predecessor, it’s still worth checking out.

Kahil El’Zabar, 71, one of the youngest members of AACM (the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians), the Chicago-based collective of Black, mainly avant-garde jazz musicians—including Lester Bowie, Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, and Amina Claudine Myers, among many others—that may have peaked in the ‘70s but whose influence persists. Kahil is one of the group’s few percussionist-leaders and the only one with prior pop grounding, and, perhaps for that reason, he’s among its most accessible as well.

The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble has been his main group; this is its 18th album in 45 years. Its players have varied, but its composition has remained roughly the same: usually a trio of two horns and percussion, though Open Me was supplemented by cello and violin (or sometimes viola). and the new one retains the cello (played by Ishmael Ali), joined on both albums by Alex Harding on baritone sax and Corey Wilkes on trumpet.

Also as on Open Me, the new album’s music is a mix of originals and standards—the latter including Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and Ellington’s “Caravan”—spread out across two vinyl LPs. A fine steady pulse undergirds at least three of the four sides, as if they formed a suite.I don’t mean to suggest it’s monotonous; far from it, this is polyrhythmic music, but there’s structure to it, even when the horns scale the ether, as they sometimes do, though even then, the rhythm stays central. Listen to how, in the intro to “Caravan,” Harding blows a syncopated string of choppy notes, which gradually sound the familiar melody. The interplay is marvelous, as when Kahil suggests Shorter’s anthemic “Footprints” in its pure rhythm, allowing the horns to explore whole new territories while staying true to the theme. Ali’s cello holds and bends the anchor throughout.

Unlike its predecessor, which was meticulously tracked in a studio, Let the Spirit Out was recorded at “mu,” a London music-and-dining venue, over two nights in July 2024 (shortly after Open Me was released), and, for the most part, it’s a simmering affair. This is a top-notch band, at once tight and loose in all the right ways, and it’s odd that they’re not better known. (They play more in Europe than in the U.S. The last time I saw them was in London, at Union Church, in 2024, and they were enthralling.) However, live albums have inherent risks, and, with Let the Spirit Out, I find the last track of Side C and most of Side D a bit monotonous (hence my rating the albums’ music an 8 instead of 9).

But hey, three sides of swooning, swinging music for dancing-on-the-floor-and-in-the-third-eye-of-your-head is a pretty good deal.

As for the sound. As noted, I gave Open Me an 11 for sound, and Tracking Angle’s editor, Michael Fremer, concurred. As I wrote in my review, “The horns, strings, and percussion are eye-blinkingly vivid, spread out across a wide and deep soundstage, tones, overtones, smacks, rumbles, and coaxings clear and vibrant.” The engineer, Dennis Tousana, told me he recorded and mixed in digital, though, as I wrote, it exuded “the full-blooded, rounded quality that most digital lacks.” It just shows what well-placed, well-balanced vintage mics can do. Anyway, Let the Sprit Out—engineered by a different crew (I emailed them for details, but didn’t get a reply)—sounds very good, but not quite as lifelike. Copy what I wrote about the earlier album, delete some of the adjectives and adverbs, and that sums it up.

Meanwhile, keep your eye on Kahil El’Zabar. Go see him if he comes to your town. And keep an eye on Spiritmuse too.