Kassa Overall, Animals, Warp ****

Drummer rapper Kassa Overall is even more stimulating than usual here and he sets the bar high. Live is usually the test of knowing anything and his midnight Soho show at the Pizza in 2019 with Mike King proved what the impressions of a few earlier …

Published: 31 May 2023. Updated: 10 months.

Drummer rapper Kassa Overall is even more stimulating than usual here and he sets the bar high. Live is usually the test of knowing anything and his midnight Soho show at the Pizza in 2019 with Mike King proved what the impressions of a few earlier albums had long hinted but whose very artifice had clouded over some of the detail. Not so here. The American moves up a gear. And if you refuse to believe that jazz and hip-hop can be fused then look away now. But Overall is not trying to prove it can. What he does do is to put a lot of complementary styles, whether vocals, rap or instrumentals, alongside each other in an at times zany forum. It may not be commedia dell'arte but ''That's the way to do it!" to quote Mr Punch. Collaborator Vijay Iyer here on 'The Score Was Made' did his own version of scalding spoken word critique far more acutely with Mike Ladd a decade ago. But here the pianist proves just as compelling by going into a glitchily minimalist-electronica expressionist space. And it is the best thing on a very accessible and likeable album that is both about art and entertainment. Elsewhere Kassa who is funny and witty at the microphone can be serious too and grooves given his considerable prowess as a drummer. If you want to delve deeper into his work then the 5-star Modern Ancestors the fine Carmen Lundy record he is all over is a good place to start. Best riffs here are found from Abdullah Ibrahim head Andrae Murchison having fun rewiring 'It ain't necessarily so' and 'Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho'. Theo Croker does the biz on the quietly moving 'The Lava Is Calm.'

  • Kassa plays the Gillesian We Out Here in August down in Dorset. Kassa Overall, photo: press

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Trombone tracks - Loft-off as core booster Barnett formula can be rigorously applied

She stood out at one particularly unforgettable Jazzahead gig in the Schlachthof this year even within a stellar horn section blend. And however blink and you'd miss it the gone in the air statements of that Lucia Cadotsch and Wanja Slavin led gig …

Published: 31 May 2023. Updated: 10 months.

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She stood out at one particularly unforgettable Jazzahead gig in the Schlachthof this year even within a stellar horn section blend. And however blink and you'd miss it the gone in the air statements of that Lucia Cadotsch and Wanja Slavin led gig were, the consummate touches of the Australian trombonist underlined the notion of the genius of the Shannon Barnett formula application once again. And here on some newly released tracks in a different playing context entirely, mercifully evident on both the stylistically divergent 1950s Ornette Coleman Something Else!!!! classic 'When Will the Blues Leave' and the 1930s Arthur Schwartz standard 'Alone Together' and not at all loftily cold in the execution from a new live album out this summer. There is certainly more space and the leadership role suits.

On 'Alone Together' sans lyrics although even in an instrumental version the Howard Dietz words, ''beyond the crowd'' say as swooningly sung and swung by Peggy Lee on 1959's Things Are Swingin', are inescapable and yet above all we are immediately turning to the J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding version on 1961's The Great Kai and J.J for a certain historical perspective and trombone nirvana.

While Kai and JJ and many other masters of jazz trombone in recent years including the great Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton and Chris Barber have shuffled off this mortal coil, Barnett shows again that this WDR Big Band stalwart is one of the living greats in whatever context you hear the fortysomething in. The others in the living great bracket we reckon in case you were wondering are numero uno Fred Wesley, then Robin Eubanks, Ray Anderson, Wycliffe Gordon, Trombone Shorty, Delfeayo Marsalis, Annie Whitehead, Samuel Blaser, Nils Wogram, Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Mark Nightingale, Conrad Herwig, Ryan Keberle, Steve Davis, Dennis Rollins, Steve Turré and Alistair White. Quite a constellation.

The Barnett tracks are drawn from Klaeng release Alive at Loft with tenorist Stefan Karl Schmid, bassist David Helm and drummer Fabian Arends

MORE JAZZ TROMBONE READING AND LISTENING:

Top jazz trombone release so far in 2023 of any style is the blisteringly feelgood trad jazz epic Uptown on Mardi Gras Day release by Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra. Frankly nothing can come close this year - it's a while to the next mardi gras, after all