Afro-Semitic Experience at TONIC this SUNDAY

[dchevan <dchevan...>]

"the Afro-Semitic Experience rocks the house" George Robinson, The Jewish Week 

On Sunday, November 3, THE AFRO-SEMITIC EXPERIENCE featuring DAVID CHEVAN AND 
WARREN BYRD makes its official New York debut at the Klezmer Brunch at TONIC, 
with David Chevan on bass, Warren Byrd on piano, Will Bartlett on reeds and 
percussion, Alvin Carter, Jr., on drums, Mixashawn.com on tenor saxophone, 
Stacy Phillips on dobro and violin and Baba David Coleman on African drums and 
percussion. TONIC is located at 107 Norfolk in New York City and the phone 
number is 212-358-7501. Sets are at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.

This performance marks the group's first official appearance in New York. The 
band will be featuring pieces from their critically acclaimed debut release, 
This is the Afro-Semitic Experience, along with other works from the repertoire 
of the Chevan and Byrd duo.

The Afro-Semitic Experience is an ensemble dedicated to preserving, promoting 
and expanding the rich cultural and musical heritage of the Jewish and African 
diaspora. Imagine a band that understands and can present interpretations of 
music from traditions as rich as Gospel, Klezmer, Nigunim, Spirituals, and 
Swing and you have the Afro-Semitic Experience. This is a group that is as 
comfortable playing a freylakh as they are swinging a blues, that knows how to 
play either a bulgar or some funk. Multi-cultural soul. 

 


"This album is compelling . . . using jazz to bring out the commonality of 
spirituality in music from two traditions, and then some. The result is 
excellent, sometimes danceable, always listenable and warming music." Ari 
Davidow, www.klezmershack.com

"Chevan and Byrd's music is more Mingus than Masada, more Rahsaan Roland Kirk 
than Klezmer. Like the aforementioned Mingus and Kirk, their music (certainly 
"jazz," if anyone will allow me to use that word) is more than the sum of its 
parts." Mark Corroto, www.AllAboutJazz.com

"This is a more laid-back take on the Hebrew/Afro-American connection than you 
hear from John Zorn and the Downtown New York crowd, but one with its own 
roughshod beauty." Jerome Wilson, Cadence


"The Afro Semitic Experience began the day of music at the main stage [for the 
Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz] with an energetic set . . . wryly quoting 
songs from "The Fiddler on the Roof and Porgy and Bess," the group that clapped 
and vamped through an hourlong set was equally at home with blues and klezmer." 
Jeff Rivers, Hartford Courant

"The musical venture you have forged and which you share with audiences is an 
exemplary fulfillment not only of a possibility, but of a profound need, 
visualized, articulated and lived-for by Martin Luther King, Jr.: respectful 
collaboration by persons of various peoples and convictions working together to 
realize shared purposes of profound significance to human flourishing." Dr. 
Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr. Director, African-American Studies Program, Vanderbilt 
University