Kahil El'Zabar with Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors at Saalfelden 1987

Regular readers of this blog may recall that we posted two albums by Kahil El'Zabar back in August, both of them released on the Sound Aspects label. They may also recall that due to an intervention by the label proprietor, the links to the files of these recordings disappeared.

Kahil El'Zabar made at least one more album for Sound Aspects called "Sacred Love" which featured Malachi Favors (who was also on the album with Billy Bang) and Lester Bowie. I do have the album, but since we're under restrictions, I'm not going to post it. The pictures appended to this post are from the back sleeve of the album, though.

Instead I propose to post something even better, a live recording from the Saalfelden jazz festival in 1987 with the same line-up. Here you'll get 20 minutes of extra music as compared to the album.

Those familiar with the other recordings will know the basic structure by now. El'Zabar starts out on earth drum, switches later to a regular drum set and finally settles in on the thumb piano. Malachi Favors stays close to El'Zabar, using the bass as a second rhythmic-percussive instrument, leaving Lester Bowie free to extrapolate on the top. The African rootedness of this set is strongly present throughout.

Two-thirds of the trio are no longer with us, but El'Zabar is still active, releasing records on the Chicago-based Delmark label. He's a long-time member of Chicago's AACM and was voted Chicagoan of the year in 2004 by the Chicago Tribune, also thereby crediting his wider work as an educator and community leader.

Basic info:

KAHIL EL'ZABAR perc,voc
LESTER BOWIE tp
MALACHI FAVORS MAGHOSTUT b,perc

Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Saalfelden, Austria
Aug 28, 1987

01 part one 45:37
02 part two 14:57
03 encore 07:37

Three pieces somewhat artificially separated, but in reality one contiguous piece with an encore at the end.

Most likely recorded from radio. There is a noticeable hiss in the quieter passages.

Another Dime, no longer on the tracker, so I've no idea who recorded/upped this one, but in any case, a tip of the hat for making this available.

ADDENDUM: It has been brought to my notice that there is another posting of this set here: http://ubu-space.blogspot.com/2008/06/kahil-elzabar-lester-bowie-malachi.html. These were posted as flacs. To save server space, I'll delete the flacs from this post, but keep the mp3 file. Those wanting the flacs are advised to seek out the other posting.

Mp3 file here:

http://tinyurl.com/3ha3k4