Review

Kahil El’zabar Quartet

A Time For Healing

Spiritmuse • 2022

The most beautiful intro to a jazz record since Benny Maupin’s »Ensenada« is just the start to this album, which then becomes even more beautiful, even more expansive, even more diverse. The American percussionist Kahil El’Zabar sets optimism and peace to music, foregoes corniness and esotericism, and creates a presence in the analogue world without any pessimism about the present. The secret is a supra-temporality that lies in this music, a validity that has its foundation in the ether – even if the thematic reference to the present is clearly given in the title and »lyrics«, this record belongs above things. This is the music plankton listened to before some lizard left the sea to disrupt the tranquillity of Earth. Kahil El’zabar Zabar’s virtuoso quartet plays spiritual jazz, plays soul, plays Africa, and just groooooves so infinitely NICELY it leaves you speechless. *»A Time For Healing« is a delight, a treat, a musical tour de force. Nothing in February 2022 is easy except peeing in the shower and, unrelated to that, listening to this record.