American Standard Time
Risk-averse Chicago drummer/producer’s rhythmically deep reimagining of Blue Note material. By Andy Cowan.
Makaya McCraven ★★★★
Deciphering The Message BLUE NOTE. CD/DL/LP
EVER SINCE he added hip-hop chops to the traditional jazz trio format on 2012 debut Split Decision, Paris-born, Chicagobased drummer Makaya McCraven has devoted his energies to blurring the lines between live performance and digital production. The self-styled beat scientist’s follow-ups In The Moment (2015) and
Universal Beings (2018) shifted the rules of creation further, layering and splicing together long improvised jams with a clutch of worldly new jazz arrivistes (including Brandee Younger, Tomeka Reid, Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia) into carefully structured pieces, while
We’re New Again (2020) – his refiguring of Gil Scott-Heron’s final album I’m New
Here – returned the late revolutionary poet to his soul jazz roots.
The son of US jazz drummer Stephen McCraven and Hungarian folk singer Ágnes Zsigmondi sets out his collagist stall – mixing samples from the original Blue Note tracks with new sessions – with a jittery refit of Hank Mobley’s A Slice Of The Top. McCraven’s agile percussion and Junius Paul’s quick-fingered bass runs accentuate its unusual five-brass voice mix – Mobley’s tenor dramatically offset by alto sax, trumpet, tuba and euphonium. His muscular rhythmic instincts also enhance the subtleties of Kenny Dorham’s muted solo on Sunset and the joyous style of trumpeter Clifford Brown’s Wail Bait, transforming the once pensive balladry of vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s Tranquillity with artful use of echo and compression.
Elsewhere, he digs deeper into the laidback funk corners and legato purity of pianist Jack Wilson’s often overlooked Frank’s Tune, enhancing its two-step groove with De’Sean Jones’s questing flute, and shows a particular affinity with the hard bop propulsion of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. Blakey’s imaginative polyrhythms are pitched more forcefully against the sharp-edged sax trade-offs of When Your Lover Has Gone, while he ups the swing quotient and off-kilter melodic contours of Mr Jin (even doubling down on its thunderous tom-tom intro).
Add in the expressive fretwork of guitarists Matt Gold and Jeff Parker, debonair vibraphone twizzles of Joel Ross and sensitive brass of trumpeter Marquis Hill and alto saxophonist Greg Ward and these sensitively sculptured, far from overwrought arrangements have tangibly pervasive results.
While McCraven cherry picks from a wide span of Blue Note history – from the pre-hard bop of Horace Silver Trio to Eddie Gale’s free jazz/gospel hybrids – his subtle beat shapeshifting is the hypnotic glue that unites the free-flowing results, hanging together like an early-hours club set, detailed with Blakey’s exhortations to “come in here and swing”.
Some purists will doubtless froth, but Makaya McCraven’s alchemical abilities and subliminal technical savvy offer both a sensitive update of the Blue Note label’s depthcharged catalogue and a welcome pathfinder for the uninitiated.