Born on November 2, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, Ernest Dawkins – also known as Ernest ‘Khabeer’ Dawkins - is a free jazz, post-bop saxophonist, composer, arranger, and band leader. He has founded several ensembles over the course of his career including Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble, Aesop Quartet, Chicago Trio, and Ernest Dawkins’ Chicago 12. When he started his musical journey, he studied bass and conga drums but changed direction after hearing Lester Young in 1973, focusing on learning the saxophone. He bought a saxophone, clarinet, and a flute and studied with members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Ernest Dawkins composed commissioned works for the Banlieues Bleues and Sons d'Hiver Festivals, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, the Jazz Institute of Chicago, and the King Arts Complex of Columbus Ohio. In the early 1990s, he founded Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble, a group of musicians that dressed in North African-inspired attire and played authentic, traditional jazz. They released the album After the Dawn Has Risen (Live at Leverkusener Jazztage) in 1992, followed a year later by South Side Street Songs. In 1995, they issued two albums: Chicago Now: Thirty Years of Great Black Music, Vol. 1 and Chicago Now: Thirty Years of Great Black Music, Vol 2. Other albums in the ensemble’s catalog include Jo’Burg Jump (2000), Mean Ameen (2004), The Prairie Prophet (2011), and Transient Takes (2016).
