“This project is about getting through this,” Kahil El’Zabar says in reference to his new album, A Time For Healing, without needing to specify what “this” is. “We’re on the dawn of a new day, coming into the light through this darkness.”
The album, released this month on the Spiritmuse label, finds El’Zabar — the veteran percussionist and bandleader, a stalwart member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians — leading an energetic new quartet. Along with trumpeter Corey Wilkes, the group features two fresh talents from the Chicago scene, saxophonist Isaiah Collier and keyboardist Justin Dillard.
A documentary short about the album, which premieres here at WBGO, features commentary from the musicians as well as footage from the studio — notably of “Eddie Harris,” titled in tribute to the Chicago-born tenor saxophone and keyboard hero.
Improvised soul, in fact, has become a preferred term for the musicians in El’Zabar’s circle. One track on the album invokes the phrase via its present-tense acronym, “Time IS.” Among the other highlights are thoughtful new interpretations of John Coltrane’s “Resolution” (from A Love Supreme) and George Gershwin’s “Summertime.”
“We want to keep the idea of ‘improvised soul’ as New Chicago,” says El’Zabar. “So there are many groups that are coming out of this idea that it’s not one genre, but the collective expression of the history in the music and the future of this music, through tolerant acceptance of concepts, ideas, values and histories that can blend together in new ways for an upliftment to communities across the world.”
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