Drummer-bandleader-composer Makaya McCraven thrives in the musical unknown
The prolific artist is bringing a string quartet and a who’s who of Chicago-based improvisers with him on tour
Makaya McCraven. Photo by NolisAnderson
The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts presents Makaya McCraven: In These Times on October 15 at 8 pm at Chan Shun Concert Hall, with opening act Gordon Grdina’s Haram
CHICAGO-BASED DRUMMER, bandleader, and composer Makaya McCraven is one of the most significant new voices in jazz, but in a way what he’s doing is as old as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, or Miles Davis: surround yourself with the best, and let them shine. Although McCraven wrote all the music on his superb new LP, In These Times, he’s quick to credit his accomplices with bringing his tunes to life—and their improvisational skills are every bit as important as their ability to read his occasionally complex charts.
Although complexity, it seems, is an aspect of his music that McCraven is quick to downplay.
“Sometimes I feel like ‘Okay, my music will have some really simple aspects to it, maybe with some challenging caveats,’” he explains, with just a hint of tongue-in-cheek humour, on the line from his Illinois home. “Like ‘This one is pretty simple, but the form is a little bit oblong, and it’s in a really fast 11/8 [time signature]. But other than that, it’s really easy.’ So you have to listen and keep your head up, and I like to work with people that have really good ears and are really good improvisers. And then when I give them the music—or I might not even have [written] music—I can trust that they’ll be on their toes. There’s got to be danger, and tightrope-walking, and I think that comes across in a cool way, too. Musically, I want to be where the unknown happens, even if we’re playing a jazz standard. That’s the dope stuff.”
That balance of freedom and structure is readily audible on In These Times, especially in the way that McCraven integrates a string quartet into his expanded band. Again, that’s not a new concept in jazz but with many previous jazz-plus-strings outings the violins, viola, and cello serve as sweetener or decoration; here, they’re incorporated into the music more subtly, and more effectively. The bandleader credits a commission from Minneapolis, Minnesota’s forward-thinking Walker Arts Center with giving him both the impetus to move in this direction and the funding to make it happen.
“As I’m making a record or a piece of music, as much as I have a vision or whatever I don’t want to prescribe too much,” he notes, adding that plans for In These Times were well underway before the Walker’s offer arrived. “I just try to set the process in motion and bring the people together and present the music and the concepts and let things unfold.
“Some of the sonics of the record, like the strings, is just me going with the wind and the tide,” he continues. “Like, I got commissioned to do a multimedia presentation of In These Times, where we did a collage video piece mixing some historical footage and some personal footage of mine and some audio clips from the Studs Terkel archive, and I had strings. That was part of the concert, just for that show, but it went really well, and we recorded it….So by doing this strings thing, those recordings became like a cornerstone of what the record would become.”
The concept continues to evolve: McCraven is bringing a string quartet on tour with him, alongside a who’s who of Chicago-based improvisers, ranging from the experienced guitarist Jeff Parker—no stranger to Vancouver audiences for his work with the post-rock band Tortoise as well as his own projects—to the “incredible” twentysomething pianist Jahari Stampley, recently tapped by Stanley Clarke for the virtuoso bassist’s touring band.
“I want to surround myself with musicians who push me and challenge me,” McCraven reiterates. “And I want everybody to bring their brilliance to it, and I get to learn and work with them. And then things happen, and I’ll be ‘Yeah! Wow, let’s do that!’ I’ll strongly stand behind what I want and I’ll make my decisions, but I don’t want to stifle the moment.”
Being cognizant of the moment is, perhaps unsurprisingly, what In These Times is all about. True to its title, it’s the product of a musician who’s grown up during the streaming era and who feels there’s no incongruity in pairing European chamber-music strings with hip-hop beats, computerized production strategies, and electronic textures. But it’s also deeply reflective of the emotional tenor of today. McCraven’s complex and often asymmetrical rhythms capture the uncertainty of our shifting political and environmental landscape, while the music’s inherent warmth—one could almost say sweetness, on occasion—offers a welcome balm for worried minds.
“I definitely wanted to make something beautiful, and I do feel like there’s a lot of art that’s very dark these days,” McCraven comments. “I don’t necessarily want to deprecate that, but sometimes I feel that when we feel tense, we project that and then it cause things to continue to get more tense. And sometimes we can sit back and realize that, even when it feels like everything is so crazy, there’s still beauty.
“I try to put in a little bit of optimism,” he adds, “because if you don’t have hope, you have nothing to progress towards.”
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