Makaya McCraven
+ Sons of Kemet + Nubya Garcia
Triple Bill
on Opening Night of The Salt Shed Chicago, August 2nd, 2022
Issue #1
Photographic Documentation by Sulyiman with words by Scott McNiece
High key... an incredibly historic happening in Chicago... It was the very first show at a new large venue - The Salt Shed - and the folks there had the good sense to pull together this epic bill.
Makaya McCraven had just announced the forthcoming release of In These Times (his first proper, personal record since 2018's Universal Beings, not to mention his first release via the three-label tri-fecta of IARC, Nonesuch, and XL Recordings), Sons of Kemet had just announced that this tour would be the band's last (at least in its current iteration, but maybe forever?), and Nubya Garcia was still smoking from a recent run of shows opening for Khruangbin (including Radio City Music Hall, with Chicago's own Jahari Stampley on keys).
Makaya McCraven
Nubya Garcia with guest vocalist Akenya Seymour (of Resavoir)
All three have interconnected histories going back to 2017, from right about when the “jazz is back” bubble started to bulge into the “mainstream,” and right about when we first visited London town with a couple dozen folks from our label family for the CHICAGOxLONDON weekender at Total Refreshment Centre. It was there/then that Makaya played two totally burning sets (the latter of which was with Nubya on sax and Kemet’s Theon Cross on tuba, their first meeting ever, yielding the music of IARC0020 Where We Come From) and we made quick besties with a vast crew of Londoners who would help us maintain our beautiful Trans-Atlantic creative interchange, which holds strong till this day. Just weeks before we embarked on that fateful trip, Kemet saxist Shabaka Hutchings was in Chicago and did an improvised set with Makaya + bassist Junius Paul + cellist Tomeka Reid at our Southside HQ Co-Prosperity Sphere, the music from which ended up on the Chicago Side of Universal Beings. (The London Side of that record features a studio session Makaya did with Nubya and others.) And just months after that fateful trip, Kemet made their first trip to Chicago, which we commemorated by bringing the band to Angel Bat Dawid’s attic studio for an impromptu late night jam session/séance with Makaya + Junius + Gira Dahnee, and a visit to the Stoney Island Arts Bank where Shabaka, Theon, and Kemet drummers Eddie Hicks and Tom Skinner joined Ben LaMar Gay and Jeff Parker in an epic jam with the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble. Not long after that, we were back in London for CHIxLDN Vol. 2 (at EartH in Hackney, a much larger stage c/o the EFG London Jazz Fest) where Theon and Nubya and Makaya led a late night jam session that also featured Junius and jaimie branch, among others… After which we hustled back home for Makaya’s Universal Beings album release shows in Chicago and New York, where he featured Shabaka and Nubya as members of his large ensemble.
Shabaka Hutchings.
L.
Theon Cross, Shabaka Hutchings.
R.
Tom Skinner, Makaya
McCraven with Crew
Those were just the beginnings… The subsequent years leading up to the present have been jam packed with stories like these. We could go on forever without even mentioning that Shabaka has been a guest instrumentalist on several other IARC releases, or that he and Nubya are guest instrumentalists on Kemet drummer Tom Skinner's album Voices of Bishara, which was co-released by IARC in a different label tri-fecta (with Brownswood & Nonesuch Records) on November 4th, 2022.
Makaya with Junius Paul, Matt Gold, Marquis Hill, Joel Ross, Greg Ward and De’Sean Jones.
De’Sean Jones with Marquis Hill and Greg Ward.
Getting back to the point here… or perhaps the present moment of focus, which found all these folks on an epic concert stage at The Salt Shed in Chicago together. Since their first meetings and collaborations in much smaller clubs in 2017, all of these artists have grown to be larger-than-life beacons of the increasingly popular “new wave of jazz” (to steal a phrase from Impulse Records), so much so that a brand new 4000 capacity venue in a glorified cow town in Middle America chose to feature them as a triple-headliner on opening night. The mere fact that these perpetually busy artists were able to be in the same city on the same night was reason enough for pause… let alone the fact that the city was Chicago, and the moment was such a particularly special point in all their individual trajectories as artists. We felt the occasion justified extensive photographic documentation, and called up the man with the cam, Sulyiman Stokes. Please enjoy this handful of glimpses from that special night.
Theon Cross.
Tom Skinner rocking a
jaimie branch tour tee.
Junius Paul, De’Sean Jones, Matt Gold, Greg Ward, Marquis Hill, Joel Ross.
Additional unpublished captures.
Photos by Sulyiman.
Tracing The Lines is a creative exploration of International Anthem Recording Co. and the community that surrounds it.
Issue #1
64-page 170x250mm newsprint zine, printed in CMYK on 55gsm stock, edited by David Brown and designed by Jeremiah Chiu, with contributions from Alejandro Ayala, André Baumecker, Andrea Falcone, Ayana Contreras, Azul Niño, Carlos Niño, Chris Kissel, Chuck Soo-Hoo, Damon Locks, Dave Vettraino, David Allen, David Brown, Drew Mitchell, Jeremiah Chiu, Kristie Kahns, Lindsey Stepney, Lori Mendoza, Marta Sofia Honer, Scott McNiece, Sulyiman, and Tom Skinner. Made in UK.