The Afro-Semitic Experience - Our Feet Began to Pray (2024)

Released to coincide with the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King, January 15, this musical project of unity began in the Nineties when pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan hooked up to play in each other's bands.

And from that the idea of exploring Jewish and African American traditions grew.

Hence the Afro-Semitic Experience and a series of albums since which bring together soul, funk, gospel and cantorial influences within a jazz context of improvisation and exploration.

By turns cool, blue and swinging (Retelling the Tales Told By Our Ancestors) or referring to classic material (a vocal take on Moanin', a moving choral amalgamation of We Shall Overcome and Oseh Shalom, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free), Our Feet Began to Pray is an album of truth, history, shared suffering and eternal optimism (If I Can Help Somebody) despite the challenges of life.

The concept for the title song came during a protest march after the death of George Floyd, as the New Haven police were moving the crowd across a bridge. The similarity between the Floyd protests and the civil rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma -- after which both Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Lewis referred to the experience as "praying with my feet" -- could not be ignored.

The vocals are well-intentioned if rather lacking in power (the title track, Shedding Our Colors) and those who prefer their socio-political jazz with a bit of astringency may well be disappointed by some of this album.

But the ethic here – and the common theme of marching in protest, out of Egypt, the Middle Passage and other journeys – is that of coming together and finding common ground which, almost by definition, requires compromise.

"Unity in the community" is the on-point shorthand for this admirable project.