# Makaya McCraven was in a jubilant mood during his quartet’s set at Chicago’s Thalia Hall: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/12/07/makaya-mccraven-was-in-a-jubilant-mood-during-his-quartets-set-at-chicagos-thalia-hall-video/
- Published: 2017-12-07T21:46:17+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Drummer Makaya McCraven was in a jubilant mood during his quartet’s set at Chicago’s
Thalia Hall on Dec. 2. “This is a party, right?” he said. “It’s all about feeling
good and thinking hard.” But his group’s music sounded far from pensive.**

McCraven had reason to celebrate. The night served as a release party for his new
album, Highly Rare (International Anthem). Like on his 2015 album, In The Moment,
layers of remixes add different perspectives to bandstand recordings. This approach
lends a new perspective to presenting a live event, such as making strong, extended
vamps seem earthier.

But for Highly Rare, he took on a different challenge. After taping a series of 
November 2016 gigs at Chicago club Danny’s on four-track cassettes, he reconstructed
them in the studio along with additional vocals and a turntable. Even hardcore audiophiles
would find little fault with the end results, even though the source material was
comparatively low-fidelity tapes. At Thalia Hall, McCraven’s Chicago-based group
showed that strong compositions and intuitive dialogue always remain at the heart
of its work.

A combination of contrasts and shifting instrumental textures shape McCraven’s ensemble.
He frequently uses snare and cymbal strikes that echo hip-hop, but the quartet also
blends these beats with Junius Paul’s buoyancy on five-string electric bass. Alto
saxophonist Nick Mazzarella and cornetist Ben LaMar Gay had their own salient responses
to the rhythm section’s fluidity. Sometimes that was evidenced as Mazzarella unfurled
a series of subtly shifting explorations of a repeated motif while Gay answered 
through quietly muted phrases.

On “R.F.J. III,” sudden turns built toward a surprisingly quiet coda. During another
piece, Gay switched to the diddley bow while incanting the names of Chicago musicians
who have passed on—from Muhal Richard Abrams (1930–2017) and Phil Cohran (1927–2017)
to gospel icon Mahalia Jackson (1911–’72). Then, McCraven took that funereal hymn,
reconfigured the tone and turned it into an r&b stomp. For this group, dynamic fluctuations
in volume become as essential as its dramatic changes in time, whether live or in
the studio.

The Thalia Hall concert also showcased the Chicago-based label International Anthem
with the inclusion of jazz/spoken-word artists Irreversible Entanglements and the
Latin-inspired Dos Santos. Irreversible Entanglements recently released its self-
titled album, and Dos Santos’ disc is slated for next summer. All three acts shared
an aesthetic of open-ended improvisation, even while taking the end results into
singular directions.

Irreversible Entanglements’ performance featured a series of bracing exchanges—whether
it was the flights of alto saxophonist Keir Neuringer and trumpeter Aquiles Navarro
or the recitations of poet/singer Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother) in response to drummer
Tcheser Holmes’ shifting accents. Ayewa’s sharp words decrying racism and violence
reaffirm that Amiri Baraka’s legacy remains vivid.

Dos Santos used such idioms as Colombian cumbia as lively launching pads and touchstones
for extensive jams among its electric guitarists and keyboards.

![Image result for Makaya McCraven](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/sPoqfmHktSs/
maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

### _Related_