Makaya McCraven spirits the UMD community in jazz performance

Makaya McCraven, an “organic beat scientist” and leading voice in Chicago’s vibrant jazz scene, brought his hip-hop-inspired rhythms and spirit of improvisation to the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Dekelboum Concert Hall Feb. 21, touring with a four-piece ensemble in support of his newest album, “Off the Record.”

The performance, played by McCraven and three other members of the record’s sessions—Junius Paul on bass, Marquis Hill on trumpet and Joel Ross on vibraphone—featured lengthy, expansive selections from the recent release, beginning with the setlist opener “Away.” McCraven spirited audience members with the drummer’s complex mixture of jazz, funk and experimental music.

In the middle of the performance, McCraven got up from his kit and spoke directly to the audience on the nature of improvisation, explaining that many people ask him how he’s able to come up with new music on the spot at every show. The answer, according to McCraven, lies in what humans do every day: processing the constant minutiae of daily life.

“We are all trying to figure this shit out in real time,” McCraven said in a monologue to the audience. “That’s improvisation!”

For the live stage, McCraven and his band adapted his signature style of retrofitting chopped-up live recordings with studio overdubs by utilizing unorthodox instruments and sounds not commonly found in a jazz ensemble, including hand bells, chimes, claves, spoken word samples and even a small radio held closely to a microphone.

McCraven’s “multitasking” approach to jazz particularly enraptured fellow drummer and graduate electrical engineering student Oliver Foley. 

“It really seemed like [McCraven] was to some extent controlling some of the sound generated by the other instruments, I just thought it pushed that improvisation to the next level,” Foley said.

Songs would begin small—just the shake of a string of bells, or the strum of a bassline—then slowly develop into complex, polyrhythmic explosions of sound. Each musician seemingly knew the exact place to join in on a vamp, almost as if the music was playing them, dictated by groove and groove alone.

“They were just messing around on the instruments, sort of drawing us in, and then without really noticing, it became a whole song,” said Ezra Paul, a junior kinesiology major.

Throughout the night, the ensemble’s sonic explorations shifted in mood and feeling, but the echo-laden trumpet melodies of Hill and the vibraphone doubling of Ross grounded the music in a way similar to the addictive, repeated hooks of mainstream hip-hop.

Thanks to the impeccable rhythm section of McCraven and Paul, the music’s groove was never led astray, and audience members bopped their heads and moved their bodies to the thunderclap of McCraven’s snare and insistent hum of Paul’s bass.

McCraven’s ensemble concluded the night with a bombastic, far-reaching encore that delighted the audience, including Kendra Scott, who saw McCraven previously perform in Philadelphia and D.C.

“Each time is different, which is why I love coming to see him,” Scott said.