Aug 12, 2025 10:24 AM
Vocalist Sheila Jordan Dies at 96
Sheila Jordan, a vocalist who was celebrated for her scatting and lyric-improvising abilities, died Aug. 11 at her home…
Makaya McCraven is among the 25 artists DownBeat thinks will help shape jazz in the decades to come.
(Photo: Leslie Kirchhoff)If one were looking for an album to illustrate an aesthetic shared by several musicians who appear on DownBeat’s “25 For The Future” list, an ideal candidate would be drummer and producer Makaya McCraven’s 2018 gem, Universal Beings (International Anthem). Personnel for the sessions included reedists Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia, bassist Junius Paul, cellist Tomeka Reid and vibraphonist Joel Ross.
After recording live performances with various assemblages of musicians in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and London, McCraven remixed the material in mind-blowing ways—chopping, splicing and thoroughly recontextualizing the music.
On July 31, International Anthem released Universal Beings E&F Sides. The source music was recorded at the same sessions that yielded the 2018 album, but using studio wizardry, the Chicago-based McCraven created 14 new tracks of what he calls “organic beat music.” E&F Sides is used as the soundtrack for Mark Pallman’s documentary about McCraven, also titled Universal Beings.
The Paris-born bandleader spoke to DownBeat in September via videoconference from his mother’s backyard in western Massachusetts, where he had traveled with his wife and two kids. McCraven said, “At my mom’s house, I have some instruments—a piano, a guitar and some old drums and stuff lying around. So, I’m mobile. I’m always working on something. Right now, trying to finish up my next ‘proper’ record.”
During the lockdown, McCraven has done a couple of commissioned remix projects. But he’s not thrilled about the prospect of livestreamed gigs: “For me, if we were going to do a high-level stream, and we’re going to get all these musicians together and we’re gonna get this recording equipment for a performance—well, why don’t we just do a record date? If we’re going to put all this energy into it, then let’s write music and let’s make a record.”
He expressed an eagerness to make art that reflects the state of the world. “I’d like to keep on moving forward,” he said. “The world is a very different place than it was in 2018.” DB
This story originally was published in the November 2020 issue of DownBeat. Subscribe here.
Jordan was a dyed-in-the-wool bebopper whose formative musical experiences were with Charlie Parker.
Aug 12, 2025 10:24 AM
Sheila Jordan, a vocalist who was celebrated for her scatting and lyric-improvising abilities, died Aug. 11 at her home…
“I don’t guess I’m going to excite you; I know I’m going to excite you,” Palmieri said in an August 1994 DownBeat feature.
Aug 12, 2025 10:33 AM
Famed Latin jazz composer, bandleader and pianist Eddie Palmieri passed away in his New Jersey home on Aug. 6. He was…
“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
“I love the place that fate or whatever has positioned me in Gil Evans’ life and legacy,” said Ryan Truesdell.
Aug 5, 2025 12:26 PM
“I originally set out to give two years of my life to Gil,” Ryan Truesdell said of his mindset in 2009, when he…
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…