Home » Jazz Musicians » Sonic Liberation Front

Sonic Liberation Front

Sonic Liberation Front is deeply rooted in the traditions of Afro Cuban music and has spent years fusing that grand tradition with new sounds including composed jazz, modern chamber composition, and the powerful Orisha spirit.

Sonic Liberation Front brings together sounds and time periods in a manner like no other band around today. As Sonic Liberation Front, this ensemble has consistently won international critical acclaim and have been named #1 or Top 10 by the Village Voice, All About Jazz, Jazziz, and more. The band has recorded five internationally-distributed albums. The eight-member ensemble has played extensively in the Philadelphia and New York area, and at festivals and cultural institutions throughout the Midwest U.S. and Canada.

The Musicians
Kevin Diehl – bata, Afro Cuban percussion, drumkit, sensory percussion, composer
Matt Engle – bass, electronics, composer
Veronica Jurkiewicz – violin, viola, vocals, sometimes piano
Elliot Levin – woodwinds (mostly reeds)
Jameka Gordon – woodwinds (mostly flutes), percussion

Special Projects:
Skip Burney – bata & Afro Cuban percussion, vocals
Greg Deal – bata, drumkit, electric bass

Tags

Album Review

Oliver Lake: Justice

Read "Justice" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Il sottotitolo dell'album parla di The Vocal Works of Oliver Lake ad opera della somma di due gruppi gemelli. In realtà questo prezioso lavoro contiene ben di più: una visione cameristica della musica da parte del grande sassofonista, fresco ottantenne, con i colori di quell'approccio al mondo dei suoni, ma attraverso una visione al tempo stesso eloquentemente calata in tutto l'universo nero (ci sono qua e là accenti funkeggianti, così cari a Oliver Lake, interventi tenoristici anche ruvidi, e svariati ...

2
Album Review

Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts: Hang Time

Read "Hang Time" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Hang Time consists of music written and performed by two student ensembles at the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts: Group Giz, an octet directed by trumpeter Greg Gisbert, and Group Gunn, a septet presided over by pianist Eric Gunnison. The CCJA is a non-profit organization “dedicated to empowering youth to creatively express themselves through the language of jazz." Drummer Paul Romaine serves as the Conservatory's artistic director. Aside from its reassurance that the future of jazz ...

181
Album Review

Sonic Liberation Front: Meets Sunny Murray

Read "Meets Sunny Murray" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Sonic Liberation Front--the inheritors of both Sun Ra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago's traditions--teams up with jazz legend, drummer Sunny Murray, to create both a studio and live recording. The music continues SLF's dedicated effort to mine the percussive traditions of Afro-Cuban, Yoruba/West Africa, and American-fostered free jazz. The percussion-heavy band's previous release, Change Over Time (High Two, 2006), included some electronic flavors. Here, the sound is all acoustic, with free jazz drummer Murray providing the inspiration ...

195
Album Review

Sonic Liberation Front: Change Over Time

Read "Change Over Time" reviewed by Jeff Stockton


Twelve musicians play in the Sonic Liberation Front on Change Over Time, but only three appeared on the group's previous release, 2004's critically acclaimed Ashe a Go- Go, including musical directors Kevin Diehl and Chuckie Joseph. As you would expect from a band led by drummers, the music leads with an African/Cuban/Caribbean percussive attack that reminds you of David Murray's work with the Gwo-Ka Masters, Fela's blend of ripping saxophone, multiplicity of drums and hypnotic vocals--and, when they talk trash ...

325
Album Review

Sonic Liberation Front: Change Over Time

Read "Change Over Time" reviewed by Nic Jones


There are a lot of elements to this music--too many, in fact--and they gel only intermittently. Percussion workouts, vocals, the overt use of Pan-African music, and horn solos all vie for attention, but after a few listens, many of them just seem to fade into the background.

The programme starts well enough with “The Next Thing That Happens," but over the course of its four minutes, its promise far exceeds its realisation, and the Ornette Coleman-esque line of the horns ...

119
Album Review

Sonic Liberation Front: Ash

Read "Ash" reviewed by Brian P. Lonergan


At Satalla in late January, Sonic Liberation Front delivered a rousing set that was representative (almost song-for-song) of the group's new album, Ashé A Go-Go. Their second release since forming in 2000, Ashé continues the Front's compelling combination of Afro-Cuban batá drumming from the Nigerian Yoruba tradition with angular horn melodies in the style of Ornette Coleman and others. The group opened the set at Satalla with the album's title track, written by percussionist Kevin Diehl, which features ...

179
Album Review

Sonic Liberation Front: Ash

Read "Ash" reviewed by John Kelman


Sonic Liberation Front, led by percussionist Kevin Diehl, straddles the space between Afro-Cuban music and free jazz. The music on the group's second release, Ashé a Go-Go , is filled with infectious primitive rhythms, but what Diehl layers over those beats is another beast entirely. Utilizing an up to four-piece horn section over the percussion and bass, Diehl puts to work some of the lessons learned from his studies with free jazz drummer Sunny Murray, and demonstrates that one can ...

Read more articles
48

Recording

Sunny Murray Meets Sonic Liberation Front on High Two CD

Sunny Murray Meets Sonic Liberation Front on High Two CD

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

The student of the music we call jazz at some point must come to terms with the impact of the avant-garde from the '60s onwards. Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, later John Coltrane, and the musicians who associated with him brought about a vast infusion of musical vocabulary and ways of speaking into improvisational practice. Looking back we can see that regardless of the rhetoric let lose in the years that followed, the innovations of these important artists have ...

192

Recording

Sonic Liberation Front Meets Sunny Murray (High Two, 2011)

Sonic Liberation Front Meets Sunny Murray (High Two, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Drummer Sunny Murray is a legend in avant-garde jazz circles, performing with everyone from Albert Ayler to Cecil Taylor, as well as recording several sessions as a leader. An accidental phone call led him to get together with the Philadelphia based ensemble Sonic Liberation Front, and it was a fortuitous meeting for all concerned.

This disc is split between two sessions, the first half from a studio meeting in 2008, and then the second half of the disc was recorded ...

107

Performance / Tour

Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio featuring Billy Bang and Sonic Liberation Front, November 10 at The Five Spot in Philadelphia

Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio featuring Billy Bang and Sonic Liberation Front, November 10 at The Five Spot in Philadelphia

Source: All About Jazz

Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio featuring Billy Bang + Sonic Liberation Front November 10, 2006 8:00 PM The Five Spot Philadelphia, PA www.arsnovaworkshop.com

Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio is not about the return of the fire- breathing brigades of the '60's, come back to reclaim musical space inhabited by a young generation of buttoned-down post-bop clones. It is, rather, a very current version of progressive improvisational music - ...

75

Performance / Tour

Sonic Liberation Front @ Tritone - Sat. Sept.10, 8:30 PM with Matrix 12:38

Sonic Liberation Front @ Tritone - Sat. Sept.10, 8:30 PM with Matrix 12:38

Source: All About Jazz

Sonic Liberation Front's first Philly gig since their hugely successful show at Mauro Pezzente's (God Speed You Black Emperor) “Suoni per il Popolo" Festival in Montreal. Sonic Liberation Front Tritone- 1508 South st. info: 215 545 0475 Saturday Sept 10 at 8:30 PM w/ new SLF member, Olufemi Mitchell plus Charles Ellerbe's Matrtix 12:38 $10 Matrtix 8:30 PM, SLF 9:30 PM SLF's newest member, Olufemi Mitchell is one ...

174

Performance / Tour

SONIC LIBERATION FRONT w/ DJ Dan Buskirk - Appearing At Tritone Thurs. March 14th, 2002

SONIC LIBERATION FRONT w/ DJ Dan Buskirk - Appearing At Tritone Thurs. March 14th, 2002

Source: All About Jazz

Philadelphia's SONIC LIBERATION FRONT returns to Tritone (1508 South St.) on Thursday March 14th, 2002. The brainchild of percussionist and composer Kevin Diehl, Sonic Liberation Front is an eight piece group the brings together traditional and avant-garde jazz, Afro-Cuban music and electronics into a surprising and ground-breaking mix. Since the release earlier this year of their debut WATER AND STONE (Eye Dog), Sonic Liberation Front has received an avalanche of rave press from a long list of magazines internationally. As ...

[a] sundry collection of wonders. It’s among the years greatest excitements.” – JAZZTIMES, Micheal J. West

“How dare you give me goosebumps so early in the morning. It looks like a great community of musicians you have there in Philly.” – John Tchicai (Perpignan, France)

“Ludicrously Superb” – Ben Watson, The WIRE

“wanted to tell you that i dig your record” – Flea

“Sonic Liberation Front is well on its way to becoming one of the more important American ensembles of the decade.” – Point of Departure, Bill Shoemaker

“Jetway Confidential is a roiling stew of diverse percussion and avant-jazz… evokes the Sun Ra Arkestra in its raucous, expansive sound.” – DOWNBEAT, Shaun Brady

“So in this beautiful album, there’s a mixture of sacred and profane, African-American song and ritual Cuban beat (influenced by Santería).” – JAZZ Magazine (France), François-René Simon

“Yin and yang-fierce avant-sax and friendly folksongs united by shifty Afro-Cuban beats.” – VILLAGE VOICE, Number 1 Jazz album, Tom Hull

“a wild joy… it’s tempting to think that the kind of sound Coltrane had in mind wouldn’t have been very different from what Murray recorded over three and a half decades later with the Philadelphia based free jazz collective Sonic Liberation Front.” – THE WIRE UKAdventures in Modern Music, Dan Warburton

“…succeed in demonstrating how close to African models much of the freakout music of Ra and Coltrane actually was… ludicrously superb, giving itotele,iya, quinto, okonkolo, chekere, chawaro, clavé, palitos and drumkit such rotundity and resonance you’re shaken to the orb.” – THE WIRE UK Adventures in Modern Music – Ben Watson

“A brazen conflation of free jazz, electronica,and Afro-Cuban rhythm

Read more

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Justice

High Two Recordings
2022

buy

Moon Rust Red Streets

High Two Recordings
2021

buy

Bombogenic -...

High Two Recordings
2016

buy

Meets Sunny Murray

High Two Recordings
2011

buy

Change Over Time

High Two Recordings
2006

buy

Change Over Time

High Two Recordings
2006

buy

Change Over Time

From: Change Over Time
By Sonic Liberation Front

Videos

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.