Music
fromLos Angeles Times
1 week ago10 minutes backstage with Bilal at Blue Note
Bilal’s 25th-anniversary performances celebrate his debut album’s jazz, hip-hop, and neo-soul fusion and his early ambition shaped by musical education and defiance.
Makaya McCraven's music is a process of transmutation: In his hands, improvisation turns into composition and then back again. Like most brilliant ideas, it's simple to explain and devilishly difficult to pull off. McCraven plays live with one of his groups, usually consisting of some of the best musicians of his generation. Then, he meticulously edits recordings of those performances into new songs, bringing a dexterous hip-hop production technique into the world of jazz.