The Afro-Semitic Experience

The Afro-Semitic Experience is an American roots jazz band with a difference. Founded in 1998 by pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan, they are a six-piece group of Jewish-American and African American musicians who have been performing, recording, and teaching together for 25 years. Their friendship ignites their passion and purpose: Together, as a band, they merge their musical roots, Jewish and Afro-diasporic melodies and grooves, combining the core concepts of ase and shalom – power, action, unity, and peace.

Their music embodies the radical notion that people of different faiths, races, and beliefs can come together through music; to celebrate and build community. The result is what one critic called, “a whoopin’, hollerin’, testifyin’ celebration of multicultural soul music. Imagine Charles Mingus sitting in with a Klezmer band, playing Gospel music set to the polyrhythmic pace of congas and bongos.”