Pittsburgh New Music Net

Thunderbird Summer Avant-Jazz Mondays presents Kahil El-Zabar & Hamiet Bluiett Ritual Trio (from Chicago)
with Thoth Trio


The Thunderbird Cafe (21 and up)
Buy Tickets Online, $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

Kahil EL’Zabar is a jazz multi-instrumentalist (mainly a percussionist) and composer. He regularly records for Delmark Records. He joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the early 1970s, and became its chairman in 1975. He formed the musical groups Ritual Trio and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, both of which remain active. Musicians with whom Kahil EL’Zabar has collaborated include Dizzy Gillespie, Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Cannonball Adderley, and Paul Simon.

Hamiet Bluiett is an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. His primary instrument is the baritone saxophone, and he is considered one of the finest living players of this instrument. In the late 1960s, Bluiett co-founded the Black Artists’ Group (BAG) of St. Louis, Missouri, a collective dedicated to fostering creative work in theater, visual arts, dance, poetry, film, and music. Bluiett joined the Charles Mingus Quintet and the Sam Rivers large ensemble. In 1976, he co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet (along with two other Black Artists’ Group members, Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake), which soon became jazz music’s most renowned saxophone quartet. Since the 1990s, he has led a virtuosic quartet, the Bluiett Baritone Nation, made up entirely of baritone saxophones, with drum set accompaniment. In the 1980s, he also founded The Clarinet Family, a group of eight clarinetists playing clarinets of various sizes ranging from E-flat soprano to contrabass. Bluiett has also worked with Babatunde Olatunji, Abdullah Ibrahim, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. He has recorded for numerous labels including India Navigation, Black Saint, Justin Time, Soul Note, and Knitting Factory.

Usually I put up a “highlights of the week” type post on Thursday or Friday, but this week you want to know about Tuesday.  This Tuesday, October 6, you can start out downtown listening to  Thoth (comprising Ben Opie, Paul Thompson, and David Throckmorton) at the Backstage Bar beginning at 5 p.m. Then shoot over to the North Side Shore to catch Diamanda Galas at the New Hazlett Theater courtesy of The Warhol’s Off the Wall series. More details and links are on the Events Calendar.