Concert Review: Kassa Overall @ The Falcon, 06/12/2023

Monday nights are usually dark at Live At The Falcon. Not surprising: You need a night off after rocking all weekend long, amirite??? As such, if the Falcon does bring in someone on (in Lee Falco’s own words) “a rare Monday night,” you know it’s got to be special, and drummer/rapper/singer/composer Kassa Overall is about as special as it gets.

A graduate of the same Seattle high school that gave us Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones, Overall has been popping up on multiple recordings in the last few years, both as an MC and a percussionist. Terri Lyne Carrington (who Overall recorded with on her 2020 release Waiting Game) calls Kassa one of her favorite musicians. Aaron Parks co-wrote one of the tracks on Overall’s new release Animal, and Parks was in attendance Monday night when Overall took Animals out for a stroll.

Kassa started behind the kit, drumming & singing as his partners fell in line behind an undeniable beat that was accented & augmented all night long by bassist Julio Xavier, conguero Bendji Allonce and multi-instrumentalist Tomoki Sanders, the latter of which played timbales & percussion when he wasn’t taking over on drums when Overall wanted to work at the front of the stage. “Powerful is as powerful does,” Overall told us in mid-song, and that about sums up Overall’s quintet: This outfit was an 800-pound gorilla with a sound system, and it did whatever the fuck it wanted with unrelenting command and peerless precision.

There are many jazz fans who are less than pleased that hip-hop has “impinged itself” on the perfect world Satch & Duke created for our own re-creation. Up until now, though, rappers have only been an extra ingredient in the overall sound. For his part, Overall is a genuine leader – composing the music, directing the band, and dazzling the audience with a charisma as enthralling as any “standard” jazz vocalist. Kassa’s singing style will never be confused with Kurt Elling or Gregory Porter, but it’s a minor part of a major talent package that electrifies this genre in the best way possible.

Overall’s primary foil was keyboardist Ian Finkelstein, who alternated between piano and Fender Rhodes to make Kassa’s compositions glow, pulse, and flash like lightning. On top of that, Overall was packing a secret weapon in Tomoki Sanders: Along with being an accomplished drummer & percussionist, Sanders blew us all away on multiple occasions with a searing soprano sax as vivid as their rainbow knee-socks and pink hair corsage. Apart from Cuban maestro Yosvany Terry, I can’t think of anyone who does what Sanders does, and the Brooklyn native does it with an infectious energy that drove them to literally run laps around the crowd during “an absolute improvisation” that had Parks joining the group and doing everything with the Rhodes but set it on fire.

If you were looking for straight-ahead jazz at the Falcon, you were SOL Monday night. That said, if you were looking for O.G. Hip-Hop, you went home empty, too. Overall’s musical world lives in a dimension all its own that proves jazz is at its best when it’s open to outside cultures & influences. Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis did it then, and Kassa Overall is doing it now. If that isn’t a good reason to go out on a Monday night, I don’t know what is.

Photo Gallery by Rudy Lu