DRUMS OUT FRONT
SEASON 5

September 9, 2016 | by Rusty Aceves

Billy Hart (photo by John Rogers)

From the time of Cozy Cole, Buddy Rich, Max Roach, and Art Blakey to the present, drummer-led bands have been some of the most exciting groups in jazz. Three superb drummer/leaders of today bring their current projects to the Joe Henderson Lab in September for our second Drums Out Front week. Billy Hart, Jamison Ross, and Makaya McCraven represent two generations of today’s jazz drumming elite, each possessing a remarkably individual approach to both the instrument and band concept.

Billy Hart

The driving pulse of drummer Billy Hart has provided the backbone for the most adventurous modern jazz since the early 1960s, including Herbie Hancock’s explosive Mwandishi band and the loosely assembled juggernaut chronicled on Miles Davis’ hugely influential 1972 release On The Corner. A rhythmic whirlwind who began his career driving the groove behind jazz legends Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery in his hometown of Washington D.C., Hart moved to New York after the death of Montgomery in 1968, and found himself in the thick of the electrified, Afro-Centric jazz scene thriving there. In addition to his contribution to definitive statements by Hancock and Davis, work with Pharoah Sanders, Eddie Harris, Joe Zawinul, Eddie Henderson, Wayne Shorter, and McCoy Tyner followed in rapid order, establishing Hart as a first-call rhythm section player. By the mid-70s, the drummer was regularly working with Stan Getz, and made his first venture as a bandleader with 1977’s Enchance, a superb session featuring Dewey Redman and Dave Holland. A procession of solid records followed with varying lineups until 2006’s Billy Hart Quartet – an acclaimed album featuring the empathic band that has been Hart’s primary ensemble ever since, featuring Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson, saxophonist Mark Turner, and bassist Ben Street. Their latest ECM release, One Is the Other, is their finest to date.

Jamison Ross

Winner of the 2012 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, drummer Jamison Ross is a bold and sympathetic musician whose upbringing in his grandfather’s church exposed him not only to the expressiveness of drumming, but the power of the human voice – twin passions he uses to their fullest on his GRAMMY-nominated, R&B-infused Concord debut album, Jamison. The Jacksonville, Florida native got his first professional break with singer Carmen Lundy, who discovered the young drummer at the prestigious Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residency at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, and has made a major impact in jazz ever since. Beyond his Monk Competition win, Ross has recorded and performed with Lundy, Dr. John, Snarky Puppy, Irvin Mayfield, Jon Cleary, Ellis Marsalis, Billy Childs, and Christian McBride. He appeared in the drumming documentary CHOPS, HBO’s Wynton Marsalis: A YoungArts Master Class, and was featured in Vanity Fair magazine’s December 2015 cover story on emerging young jazz masters, The Jazz Youth-Quake. With the release of Jamison, Ross showcases his soulful voice and remarkable drumming in a tour-de-force debut steeped in the New Orleans tradition that features Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste.

Makaya McCraven

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Paris-born, Chicago-based drummer Makaya McCraven has powerful grooves and a passion for deep-water musical exploration in his blood. The son of free jazz luminary Stephen McCraven (Yusef Lateef, Sam Rivers, Archie Shepp), the younger McCraven has assimilated the seemingly disparate, yet inextricably tied, influences of post-Coltrane jazz and hip-hop’s most experimental fringes to create a unique multi-dimensional approach – a sonic signature that marries live performances with electronic manipulation and looping into a gritty, uncompromising, and seamless whole. McCraven’s visionary style, incorporating the virtuosic interplay of vibraphonist Justin Thomas, bassists Junius Paul, Joshua Abrams, and Matt Ulery, trumpeter Marquis Hill, saxophonists De’Sean Jones and Tony Barba, and guitarist Jeff Parker, is fully realized on his critically-lauded International Anthem album In The Moment; a release that made Top 10 lists in DownBeat andPopMatters, as well as Album of the Week kudos from BBC Radio tastemaker Gilles Peterson and Billboard’s list Hear Now: 5 New Jazz Albums You Need to Check Out. Aptly described as a “beat scientist” more than a drummer, McCraven is a maverick musician and composer helping define what jazz means now.