It’s not particularly controversial at this point in time to suggest that jazz and hip hop are inherently linked; they are seen by many as essentially two different dialects of the same language, with blurry lines between them. Artists like Kassa Overall, however, can lead us to question whether there is really any line between the genres at all. He and his band graced the fortuitously covered Pub Molson stage on Thursday evening after some heavy rain finally let up.
The groove of the opening piece, Overall’s ‘Ready To Ball’ gradually emerged from a bed of out-of-time textural swells from the band, with the bandleader expanding the sonic landscape with electronics. The way the band played this song clearly demonstrated the homogeneity with which they relate to jazz and hip hop – from one moment to the next we heard electronics and a live rhythm section; a firm backbeat and sparse piano comping; rapping and up-tempo swing, with no moment feeling out of place.
Overall described each member of his band as ‘possibly’ the best on the planet at their instruments, and with the musical relationships on display onstage, it is clear he did not say this disingenuously. Pianist Matt Wong clearly subscribes to the Overall Ethos of the project, as illustrated by his excellent solo on A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Check the Rhime’ which expanded cleverly on the melodic motif in the Average White Band sample. The rhythmic linkup Overall has with percussionist Bendji Allonce and bassist Giulio Xavier could hardly be tighter if they were quantized in a DAW. As a unit the band played with great intensity, a highlight of the show being a blistering cameo solo from tenor saxophonist Isaiah Collier.
What sets Kassa Overall apart from other acts that merge jazz and hip hop is the level of authenticity with which he approaches it. When he plays a modal jazz interpretation of Digable Planets’ ‘Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)’ and gradually changes the groove from fast swing to a backbeat so that you never notice the switch, it is because he genuinely feels the link between the two grooves. When he plays ‘Check the Rhime’, it is with the same familiarity and reverence with which he would play a jazz standard like McCoy Tyner’s ‘Passion Dance’, which is incidentally exactly where the Tribe tune went. He truly has one foot firmly in each lane and never fully leaves one or the other behind. What he ends up with is a new third lane entirely of his own.
Photo by Productions Novak
