A new album by Kassa Overall is always a cause for celebration here at Phil’s Phriday Picks. Two of his previous albums are previous picks: His record I Think I’m Good was a PPP way back in March of 2020 and more recently Animals was a PPP in April of 2023.
He also recently performed with legendary saxophonist Gary Bartz at this summer’s Chicago Jazz Festival. From this footage it appears to have been an excellent show:
So let’s break out the party hats, because today Kassa Overall released a new album! The album is called Cream and is today’s pick!
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This one has a little bit of an extra twist: seven out of the eight songs on the record are jazz interpretations of 1990’s hip-hop songs. The only exception is the album opener, “Freedom Jazz Dance”, the Eddie Harris composition that was famously recorded by Miles Davis on his 1967 classic Miles Smiles.
For context, here is Eddie Harris performing “Freedom Jazz Dance” at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1969:
Here is the Miles Smiles version of the song:
Finally, here is Kassa Overall’s interpretation:
I think listening to all these versions of “Freedom Jazz Dance” illustrates what makes Cream so interesting. Kassa and his group (consisting of Emilio Modeste on soprano sax, Matt Wong on keyboards, Bendji Allonce on percussion, and Jeremiah Kal’ab on bass) don’t just play straight versions of all the songs here. They twist them inside-out and stretch them in fascinating new directions.
As part of the promotion of the record, Kassa Overall released live versions of some of the songs. I think watching and listening to the band performing the songs live really help listeners appreciate the studio versions more, so I will highlight a few of them alongside the original hip-hop classics.
The album is named after the Wu Tang Clan song C.R.E.A.M. and here is Kassa’s version:
Here is the original song from Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers):
Another highlight is “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang”, originally by Dr. Dre on The Chronic:
“Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” from Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) by Digable Planets also gets a nice jazzy treatment:
Finally, check out this amazing cover of the Aquemini-era Outkast banger “SpottieOttieDopaliscious”:
The other songs on Cream are “Big Poppa” (originally by Notorious B.I.G.), “Check The Rhime” (originally by A Tribe Called Quest) and “Back That Azz Up” (originally by Juvenile). They are uniformly awesome.
The entire album clocks in at a crisp 36 minutes. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and invites repeated listening (In fact, I’ve probably listened to the record over 5 times today). It will likely be one of my favorite records of the year when 2025 comes to a close.
