Makaya McCraven has an ability to blur boundaries between jazz, hip-hop and electronic music, and bend time and rhythm to his own metronome.
McCraven was born in Paris and raised in Massachusetts, surrounded by jazz legends like Archie Shepp and Yusef Lateef. But it was after moving to Chicago in 2006 that he developed his signature style: he began recording live improvisations with bands, took home hours of material and pieced and sculpted it into finished beats with the same feel that Teo Macero brought to Miles Davis’ On the Corner.
His breakthrough came in 2015 with In The Moment, followed by Universal Beings (2018) where musicians from London, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago met. The New York Times wrote that “McCraven has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality”. In 2022 he released In These Times, an orchestral work that took seven years to complete and was praised as his most ambitious project.
In fall 2025, McCraven released four new EPs: Techno Logic, The People’s Mixtape, Hidden Out! and PopUp Shop. The projects are built around live improvisations with different musicians in different cities – from London to Berlin, New York and of course Chicago. Jazz innovation in real time!
LINEUP
Makaya McCraven – drums
Matt Gold – guitar
Marquis Hill – trumpet
Junius Paul – double bass
