Makaya McCraven: In These Times

Prolific drummer, producer, and composer Makaya McCraven believes that the word “jazz” is “insufficient, at best, to describe the phenomenon we’re dealing with.”

His newest album, In These Times, is the triumphant finale of a project more than seven years in the making. It’s a preeminent addition to his acclaimed and extensive discography, and it’s the album he’s been trying to make since he started recording. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as it is by McCraven’s personal experience as a product of a ultinational, working-class musician community.

McCraven, who has been aptly called a “cultural synthesizer,” has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders, and blending past, present, and future into post-genre, jazz-rooted, 21st century folk music. According to The New York Times, “McCraven has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.” To experience In These Times live is to experience the evolution of the modern jazz tradition in real time.