There are giants among us, whose long shadows tell us much about our past and present. Joe Chambers is such a giant. His career is as consequential as it is long. The drummer on many classic 1960s Blue Note and Impulse recordings, including Wayne Shorter’s Adam’s Apple and Archie Shepp’s Fire Music, Chambers’ approach to percussion and composition evolved as a founding member of M’Boom, Max Roach’s seminal percussion ensemble formed in 1970. With the release of the minor classic The Almoravid in the mid-1970s, Chambers established his reputation as a multi-faceted composer, an accomplished vibraphonist and pianist, and a leader of distinctively configured ensembles, documented most recently on the 2023 Blue Note album, Dance Kobina.

Chambers’ dedication to percussion music is also exemplified by Onilu, a percussion ensemble whose core members include Kevin Diehl and Chad Taylor. On occasions, Onilu can include other percussionists or work as a duo, which will be the case when Joe Chambers and fellow master percussionist Kevin Diehl perform as Onilu Duo on Friday, May 23^rd, beginning at 8pm at the Frederick YMCA Arts Center, located at 115 East Church Street. This is an all too rare opportunity to witness a bona fide legend, a griot that tells the tale of the music’s history with his every stroke.

Contrary to the stereotype of modern percussion ensembles as esoteric or academic pursuits, Onilu – the Yoruba word for drummer – creates music that reaffirms the powerful social and sacred musics made in African diasporic communities and across cultures since the beginning of human time.

Performing with Joe Chambers is Kevin Diehl, who leads the longstanding Philadelphia-based Afro-Cuban-Yoruba ensemble Sonic Liberation Front, whose eight CDs have garnered international critical acclaim. Diehl also performs with NEA Jazz Master Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons ensemble and has recorded with other Philadelphia jazz legends like Sunny Murray and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. Diehl is also a priest and an Ilu Bata (keeper of the sacred drums) of the Lucumi (Afro-Cuban-Yoruba) culture, and the founder of the Lucumi Youth Choir.

Onilu’s debut LP has just been issued on the esteemed audiophile Eremite label. Copies will be available for purchase at the concert.

In his liner notes for the album, composer-percussionist Dana Hall wrote: “These artists are master musicians and the music they present here is masterfully conceived. The drum, and its entire global family of membranophones, shakers, and idiophones, are conduits for their collective creative voice. In addition to drummers, they are also composers, and their works here represent a synthesis of ideas, concepts, and their individual dialectics on the language and syntax found in much of African and African Diasporic musics. A music that uses call and response. One that honors the past while looking forward to the future. A music that is principally concerned with feeling, mood, and storytelling. One that eschews frivolity and the baroque. A music that swings and grooves. I found myself dancing to this recording. Trust me, you, too, will find yourself rightfully and unapologetically dancing to this recording.”

There is wheelchair access to Studio A via the rear parking lot entrance.