Makaya McCraven

Makaya McCraven plays Underground Arts on Thursday, November 5. It's a single-bill night, so he's the only name on the marquee.

McCraven is a Chicago native who's built a reputation as a 'cultural synthesizer' and a 'beat scientist.' The two descriptions point to the same thing: he doesn't just play jazz; he treats it as raw material. He's known for collapsing space and blending past, present, and future into what he calls poly-textural, post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st-century folk music. It's a mouthful of a description, but it fits the way he works—taking the improvised spirit of jazz and layering it with a beat-driven sensibility that feels as much at home in a studio as it does on a stage.

That approach has caught the attention of some of the biggest names in music and criticism. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, Vice, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR. Passion of Weiss has gone a step further, placing him at the next evolution of the Black improvised music colloquially known as 'jazz.' If you've heard his records, you know the sound: jazz at its core, but stretched and reshaped into something that doesn't quite fit into a single box.

Underground Arts, at 1200 Callowhill St, has been a staple of Philadelphia's local music and art community for more than a decade, and it's where you'll find him that night. Doors open at 7:30 PM, and the show starts at 8:30 PM.