The Afro-Semitic Experience

By Scott Halasz, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

With apologies to Jimi Hendrix, the Experience is alive and well.

But this one isn’t about Purple Haze or a Foxy Lady. This is the Afro-Semitic Experience and it’s coming to Dayton as part of the DJCC’s Jewish Cultural Arts and Book Festival.

“It’s really a wonderful combination of different aspects of Jewish music and African-American church music tradition all rolled up into one, with added spice,” said founding member and bassist David Chevan.

The band masterfully mixes and interprets gospel, klezmer, nigunim, spirituals and swing into an energetic, hootin’ and hollerin’ event.

Part of a typical set list could include: Sente, an African drum call; On Time God, a contemporary Gospel tune; Ocho Candelas, a Sephardi Chanukah song; Water From An Ancient Well, a Muslim song from South Africa; Fon Der Khupe, a klezmer tune from Eastern Europe; I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, a song from the Civil Rights movement; and Eliyahu HaNavi, sung at the Passover seder and at Havdalah.

“That’s a wonderful thing about our process,” said Chevan, who holds a Ph.D. in jazz history. “It’s a really wonderful, in-the-moment exchange of music and culture.”

But if you are at Sinclair Community College’s Blair Hall on Dec. 11, you may not recognize some of the songs at first.

“When we do something that is traditional we put our own stamp on it,” Chevan said. “We may perform a gospel piece or Jewish synagogue music but the way we interpret it is our own.

“Some of us sing, some of us don’t sing…very often if we go some place, we actually invite the cantor to sing with us or if we perform in a church we often perform with a local choir. It’s very important to us, as part of what we do.”

The band likes to get other people involved “so they themselves have a genuinely Afro-Semitic experience,” Chevan said. “It’s a real thing that can happen for people.”

So just what is the experience?

“There’s real meaning,” Chevan said. “There’s real depth. You’re going to get something. You’re going to walk away feeling ,‘I just had an experience.’ ”

And that experience could be different for everyone.

The band has released five CDs. Chevan just released a solo project, Yizkor, in which he was backed by the Experience.

“My giving them credit on the album cover is a reflection of my faith in my own band,” he said.

Fans have faith in the band as well.

“Much of how we’ve grown as a group has been word of mouth,” Chevan said. “Very often people will send me an e-mail and say we saw you at such-and-such a thing and we’d like to bring you in for our event.”

Rolling Stone Magazine called the band a “spiritual union.”

“Some people are going to come just for the music because they know we are just really solid players,” Chevan said. “All of them I support. All of them are good reasons for coming to hear us.”

The Connecticut-based group started in the late 1990s as a duo with Chevan and pianist Warren Byrd. Saxophone player Will Bartlett, drummer Alvin Carter Jr., and African drum specialist Baba David Coleman quickly joined and “around (the year) 2000 or so we had us a group,” Chevan said.

“Technically that’s not even the very, very beginning,” he added. “What happened was we played a Friday night service. I told my cantor we’d been working on a little bit on Jewish (and) African-American melodies. He got all excited.”

The band was invited to perform during the synagogue’s service on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.

“At the end of the service we got contacted by people for other gigs,” Chevan said.

The Afro-Semitic Experience: Thursday, Dec. 11, 7:30 p.m., Sinclair Community College’s Blair Hall, Building 2. Parking is located on both sides of Fourth Street and in the triangle parking lot (B) across from Building 2. Tickets are $12 adults, $10 students in advance; $15 adults, $12 students at the door. For reservations, call Karen Steiger at 853-0372 or go to www.jccdayton.org.