Makaya McCraven, the drummer, composer and self-described 'beat scientist' makes music by way of an elaborate hybrid method combining improvisation with careful editing. It sounds like magic.
McCraven's radiant new offering, confirms that he's moved well past the proof-of-concept phase — showing that it's possible to use tools from across the history of jazz performance and hip-hop production, with a sensitive hand that masks an obsessive attention to detail. By far the most"finished" of his albums, it marshals a total of 15 collaborators in a sonic tapestry that shimmers as it flows.
The album opens with its title track, and something like a manifesto. First comes applause, and a twitchy ostinato for strings. Then the voice of activist, actor and singer Harry Belafonte, pulled fromin 1955. There's no hint as to the context, but Belafonte is paraphrasing the African American folk hero John Henry, talking about the affront of a steam drill brought in to dig the Big Bend tunnel in West Virginia in the late 19th century.
"I'd never want to be known as anybody opposed to progress," says Belafonte, in Henry's voice,"but this is no longer a matter of progress or not progress.
The same song appears here, as"Lullaby," with a melody introduced by Brandee Younger's harp and then picked up by pizzicato strings. Younger is one of a handful of intuitive improvisers who constitute McCraven's inner circle, and most of the others — including Ward, trumpeter Marquis Hill and flutist De'Sean Jones — have moments here to shine.
Melody has always been a secret weapon in McCraven's music, which often weaves a few different hooks into a chain.features some of the most appealing themes he has ever crafted. One of these,"So Ubuji," has a marimba melody, a head-nod tempo and the rare distinction, on this album, of unrolling in a straightforward 4/4 cadence.