Kassa Overall

About

An artist who embodies jazz’s exploratory spirit, blending a bone-deep grasp of the tradition with an innate feel for cutting-edge rhythms and technology, drummer and producer Kassa Overall returns to SFJAZZ on the heels of his most recent release CREAM . The Seattle-born, New York-based musician was mentored by Billy Hart, Elvin Jones, and Billy Higgins, and has worked as a sideman and collaborator with Christian McBride, Vijay Iyer, Ravi Coltrane, Gary Bartz, Henry Threadgill, and Wallace Roney. He had a high-profile affiliation with the late piano genius Geri Allen in her Timeline band, works widely with trumpeter Theo Croker, and appeared at SFJAZZ with Vijay Iyer’s groove-centric Thums Up project during the 2017-18 Season and with saxophone legend Gary Bartz as part of the 2024 San Francisco Jazz Festival. As a solo artist, Overall has released a series of mixtapes and full-length albums that ingeniously combine samples, programmed beats, jazz, and hip-hop with an unpredictable sense of experimentation. After the runaway success of 2023’s ANIMALS , Overall ups the ante with CREAM , a reimagining of hip-hop milestones by The Notorious B.I.G., A Tribe Called Quest, Dr. Dre, OutKast, Wu-Tang Clan, Digable Planets, and Juvenile, many that have a basis in samples of jazz classics.