Kassa Overall
Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz
Self-released
If you were following jazz in Seattle in the last century, you probably heard about standout Garfield High School drummer Kassa Overall. If you tuned in during this era, you may have seen him playing with the late Geri Allen or tapping his laptop with Jon Batiste & Stay Human on “The Late Show with Steven Colbert.”
After more than a decade in New York, Overall has become a force to contend with, both as a jazz drummer and hip-hop producer-MC. His debut full-length, Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz, melds those two sources in a bold and seductive way.
A master of warm, soulful mixes—sometimes with bedroom eyes—Overall kneads live jazz instruments (trumpet, saxophone, drums, piano) into electronic textures and beats with
a canny balance of pop tightness and controlled chaos, sometimes creating ecstatic atmospherics (“The Sky Diver”) or heartfelt tributes (“When Will They Learn,” with Carmen Lundy), and at others delivering raps about Jungian archetypes (“La Casa Azul,” with Roy Hargrove), friends fallen (“Mark Sampson”) or living (“My Friend,” with Arto Lindsay), institutionalized racism (“Prison and Pharmaceuticals”), love lost (“What’s New With You”), fame (“Who’s On The Playlist,” with celestial vocals by Judi Jackson), or yearning love (“Do You,” with Theo Croker).
I love this line from Overall’s caustic riff on the standard, “What’s New” — “Next lifetime, please stay away from me.” I’m not so crazy about the rippling electronic clichés on “Do You,” nor do the bumping interruptions and silvery synths add much to the Lundy remix. But this is a stupendously smart album that Seattle jazz fans can be very proud of. And by the way, that’s Seattle’s own Lauren Du Graf reciting the title’s intriguing suggestion.
–Paul de Barros
Kassa Overall performs Saturday, July 20, at the Capitol Hill Block Party on the Vera Stage. Tickets and information at capitolhillblockparty.com
