Language Selection
Ancient To The Future
USA, Morocco, UK
Ava Mendoza - guitar, vocals
Majid Bekkas - gimbri, oud, vocals
Xhosa Cole - saxophone, flute
Hamid Drake - drums
The "Great Black Music" of this quartet, which spans generations and traditions, shows that the distance from the ancient to the future may not be as far as it looks. Inspired by the freedom-loving ideals of the "Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians," founded sixty years ago in AEC-Chicago, they create a place where heritage and modernity meet to "move, dance, and rejoice in the now and the future." Ancestors and rituals, codes and masks, culture and identity float through the "kaleidoscopic world" created by celebrated Brooklyn guitarist Ava Mendoza, Moroccan Guembri- and Gnawa-master Majid Bekkas, 28-year-old British sax-sensation Xhosa Cole, and 70-year-old American spirit percussionist Hamid Drake. “Tones, shrills, chords, polyrhythmic textures glistening through space and time, evoking the possibility of what might seem impossible.”
Ava Mendoza - guitar, vocals
Majid Bekkas - gimbri, oud, vocals
Xhosa Cole - saxophone, flute
Hamid Drake - drums
The "Great Black Music" of this quartet, which spans generations and traditions, shows that the distance from the ancient to the future may not be as far as it looks. Inspired by the freedom-loving ideals of the "Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians," founded sixty years ago in AEC-Chicago, they create a place where heritage and modernity meet to "move, dance, and rejoice in the now and the future." Ancestors and rituals, codes and masks, culture and identity float through the "kaleidoscopic world" created by celebrated Brooklyn guitarist Ava Mendoza, Moroccan Guembri- and Gnawa-master Majid Bekkas, 28-year-old British sax-sensation Xhosa Cole, and 70-year-old American spirit percussionist Hamid Drake. “Tones, shrills, chords, polyrhythmic textures glistening through space and time, evoking the possibility of what might seem impossible.”
