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Khalil Shaheed
Trumpet-Flugelhorn player, recording artist, producer, composer, educator, program director, and bandleader. Khalil has enjoyed performing and teaching jazz music while designing and recording hybrids of jazz, funk, R&B and blues for over thirty years. A Chicago native, who started playing professionally while still in High School, Khalil has over forty years of professional playing experience. An audition in 1968 for the Buddy Miles Band became a six-year gig that took him on national and international tours and led to the recording of five albums with Buddy.
It was during this time as well that Khalil forged a friendship with Jimi Hendrix whom he met through Buddy Miles. There were numerous recordings with Jimi, one of which has recently been released by Martin Scorcese. With solid ties to both the Jazz and R&B communities Khalil has had the opportunity to play and/or record with numerous great musicians such as his mentor Billy Higgins, Woody Shaw, John Handy, Taj Mahal, Ed Kelly, Ndugu Chancelor, Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Simmons, Rachael Ferrell, Ledisi, Clark Terry, Marlo Henderson, Randy Crawford, Ernie Watts, George Bohanon, Oscar Brashear, Tootie Heath and others.
Khalil was also featured as jazz soloist with the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Morgan. He continues to work as consultant for the San Francisco Symphony’s Aim Program, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and the San Jose Jazz Society. In 1994 Khalil founded the Oaktown Jazz Workshops, a non-profit jazz education organization dealing with youth between the ages of 10 and 18 years teaching them performance and about the history of America’s Classical Music Jazz.
Never one to be content Khalil is constantly looking for new musical adventures. He currently leads three bands, Mo'Rockin Project, Big Belly Blues Band (a 13 piece dance/party band), and the Khalil Shaheed Quintet.
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Yassir Chadly
Born in Casablanca, Morocco, Yassir Chadly has made the USA his home since 1977 and has been performing and recording Moroccan music here since that time. He is a gifted musician of many traditional Moroccan instruments including the oud, gimbri, karkabas, darbuka, fretless banjo, tarija and bendeer and is one of the first Moroccan artists to introduce his native music to an American audience. His innovative style and distinctive personality has led him to collaborate with many American Jazz artists including Pharoah Sanders, Steve Coleman and Randy Weston. He has also recorded and performed with Cuban artist Omar Sosa, digeridoo master Stephen Kent, bluegrass musician and Buddhist activist, Alan Senuake, and Muslim Rap artist Tyson.
His first solo CD, "AJEEB !! " was released in 2005 . He has composed and performed Moroccan music for Alonzo KIng and The Lines Ballet Company of San Francisco, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre , and most recently was a featured performer with Philip Glass and his ensemble at the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. In addition to his musical talents he has also performed as a Folkloric Storyteller, bringing together Western and Sufi traditions in an innovative style, and as a speaker he has lectured extensively on Islamic and Sufi subjects promoting understanding and religious tolerance. He is an associate professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and at The California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco.
He has been a consultant for and appeared in 2 films , "Oceans of Mercy: African-American Sufi Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area " produced by Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje` and "ZRAREET !! ", a film about Moroccan women produced by Yassirs' wife, Khadijah Chadly. He is also the imam of the Masjid-Al-Iman in Oakland, Ca. and a devoted student of Sheikh Hisham Kabbani of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order, an Islamic organization which is dedicated to promoting peace and understanding between all peoples and religions.
Yassir resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and three sons .
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