Makaya McCraven has “quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality” (The New York Times). The Paris-born, Massachusetts-raised, Chicago-based drummer, composer, producer, and sonic collagist is a multi-talented "cultural synthesizer" whose inventive process and intuitive, cinematic sound defies categorization.
"I'm really drawn to folk music. Music of aural tradition, music that is of the people where it's… more of a collective experience of music and dance and culture that we all participate in and know as part of our being or as part of who we are," McCraven says. He sees his work as a continuation of those traditions. He likes to teach the music to musicians by ear, and hopes even when he brings in more challenging rhythms, or difficult time signatures, that he still tries to do it in a way that is of the body and of the people of the Earth; in a way that’s not necessarily some intellectual experiment, but more something that's dealing with people.
