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Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Heritage featuring Billy Bang

Internationally acclaimed percussionist, composer and educator Kahil El’Zabar grew up on Chicago’s south side, in an era when, he says, “African-Americans, as a large group, 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.” Thus, in 1973 while attending Wake Forest College, he passed on the opportunity to study mime in Paris with Marcel Marceau and instead used the money to study African music firsthand at the University of Ghana. Now a successful composer who’s scored three feature films and worked with artists ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to Stevie Wonder to Poi Dog Pondering, El’Zabar continues to perform around the world in addition to his teaching gigs at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is joined by violin virtuoso Billy Bang, whose influences include John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Bang also continues to play around the world and has worked with everyone from Arlo Guthrie to Bootsy Collins to Sun Ra. This special performance finds Bang continuing a collaboration with El’Zabar that originated in 1996 and has yielded albums recorded both as a duo and as a guest with El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio.

Friday, June 8 at 8pm. Hallwalls at The Church, 339 Delaware Ave. $15 or $10 members/students/seniors