Guiding the undulating, polyrhythmic, genre-ambiguous flow of drummer
Makaya McCraven's ever-evolving "organic beat music," is a strategy not far removed from the one employed by
Teo Macero and
Miles Davis on
Bitches Brew and subsequent dates: Here, moments from continuous improvised performances are digitally looped, cut, spliced, and edited into entirely new compositions.
McCraven has been developing the approach for some time, though it came to fruition on 2015's brilliant
In the Moment, culled from nearly 48 hours of live improvised performance at a single venue over a year, then processed and remixed into 19 individual pieces.
McCraven takes a leap further out on the double-length
Universal Beings. The set was recorded in four cities (New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles) with four ensembles. The players on these include bassist and fellow Chicagoan
Junius Paul, cellist and former Chicagoan
Tomeka Reid, U.K.-based saxophonists
Nubya Garcia and
Shabaka Hutchings, L.A. violist/arranger
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, percussionist
Carlos Nino, and Chicago ex-pat and current Angeleno guitarist
Jeff Parker, to name a few.
As indicated by the drummer's genre term, the root of this utterly holistic music lies in wholly improvised sessions. All are different in feel. The New York session revolves around a gradually ratcheting spiritual dimension due in large part to
Reid's canny interaction with transcendent harpist
Brandee Younger. The rhythm section -- vibraphonist
Joel Ross, bassist
Dezron Douglas, and
McCraven -- offer hypnotic hip-hop shuffles, riff-like feints, and drones in an incantatory pace across a suite of six pieces ranging in duration from 33 seconds to five-and-a-half minutes. The spirit and inspiration of
Alice Coltrane permeates the music's flow in rhapsodic whole tones. The Chicago side commencing with "Pharaoh's Intro" stars
Hutchings and
Paul communicating in post-bop cadences carried by
McCraven's frenetic drumming. It follows to "Atlantic Black" with fiery, Nigerian funk rhythms colored by cello and bassline pulses and saxophone loops over a spacy electric piano and a spiky
Reid solo pushing the tune outward. It's brought back inside by the Afro-beat rhythms and dubwise basslines undergirding "Inner Flight." The London side skates between trippy, soulful, syncopated jazz-funk and modal jazz courtesy of
Garcia's illustrious horn and
Ashley Henry's Rhodes piano as the interplay between
McCraven and bassist
Daniel Casimir balances both ends of the spectrum; they create emphasis, tension, and release. The Los Angeles side contains virtually everything that previously transpired but goes somewhere new. Between frontline players -- guitarist
Parker, alto saxophonist
Josh Johnson, and
Atwood-Ferguson -- harmonic ideas are introduced, exchanged, embellished, then repurposed to suit the polyrhythmic flow generated by
McCraven,
Nino, and bassist
Anna Butterss. The seductive, groove-laden, post-midnight jazz in "Fifth Monk" is a stellar example. At the end of the recording,
McCraven says "You guys got all that?" then laughs. Given all that's here, one wonders who he was speaking to, the engineers or the listeners?
Universal Beings is unique from any other jazz recording in 2018: It marries virtuoso musicianship, technological savvy, a keen editor's ear for creative inspiration, and a plethora of almighty grooves. ~ Thom Jurek
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