A Jew and a Black guy walk into a practice room, or The Afro-Semitic Experience

The Afro-Semitic Experience. Image credit: http://afrosemiticexperience.net  

I was digging though some old CDs (remember those?) in the hopes that loading up another hard drive with my music is not in vain, even while the cloud-based streaming services battle it out.

Lo, and behold what I found - The Afro-Semitic Experience. I first ran across them in 2005, in conjunction with the release of their album, A Plea for Peace.

The group is the result of the steady collaboration of Warren Byrd and David Chevan. Here's what their website says:

With their highly accessible ethnic world music mix and their ability to get an audience on its feet, The Afro-Semitic Experience is emerging on the festival scene and redefining the jazz concert. This is a band beyond category—a mix of spiritual, world-beat, funk, jazz, cantorial, gospel, salsa, swing . . . soul-driven music. Their concerts are celebrations where they play great music, tell stories, and offer a positive and meaningful message: Unity in the Community.
Co-founded by African-American jazz pianist Warren Byrd, and Jewish-American jazz bassist David Chevan for an interfaith Martin Luther King memorial service in 1998, The Afro-Semitic Experience has gone on to share their music at concerts, workshops, and worship services all across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Their music is an intricate tapestry of the distinct cultures and heritages of the members of the group. They weave stories and music together as they celebrate and explain the Jewish and African-American sacred traditions.

So the mission of the group is a good one. But that never guaranteed music that cooks! Fortunately for the listening public, ASE is an incredibly talented group, fusing and synthesizing disperate traditions - a hallmark of the American experience, as well as the African- and Jewish-American experiences.

I encourage you to pick up a disc (or download the tracks), as their studio work is engaging, but don't miss live recordings either! Any group that is 'experiential' deserves as much: