On his third album — and first for the British label Warp — Kassa Overall reveals himself more as a composer and producer than as a drummer. The musician from Seattle, who we saw alongside Ravi Coltrane and Christian McBride (among others), offers here his own and fascinating vision of a fusion between rap and jazz that borrows as much from electronic music as to orchestral soul, accentuating the contrasts, even the conflicts, between these genres to better underline their contribution to the vocabulary of jazz. He nevertheless manages to offer a surprisingly coherent album which seems to follow a narrative thread through which we hear the voices of MCs Danny Brown (on clock ticking) and Lil B (on the fabulous going upin conclusion), or the singer Laura Mvula (powerful and hypnotic so happy) — trumpeter Theo Croker and pianist Vijay Iyer (meticulous about The Score Was Made) are also contributing to this success. In concert (free) at Studio TD on July 6, playing at the Festival international de jazz de Montréal.
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