
Design courtesy of the artist.
We’ve just passed the equinox, spring is on its way, and Kassa Overall is four shows deep into his TIME CAPSULE residency at The Jazz Gallery. The last gig, featuring Aaron Parks and Rashaan Carter, was a quiet Valentine’s Day affair. The next show will feature Sullivan Fortner, a dynamic and introspective artist who, now in his early thirties, is widely praised as one of today’s top jazz pianists. In our latest interview with Overall, we talked about French existentialist writers, the tribulations of being an independent artist, and the quiet brilliance of Sullivan Fortner (pun intended—read on to see why).
The Jazz Gallery: Hey Kassa. What’s the latest with the new album?
Kassa Overall: Yo. The album is still lit. Right now I’m a super independent artist, so I’m working on booking shows. There are a bunch of little pockets of energy all over, but you still have to thaw them up to reach them, so to speak. For example, I’m performing in Seattle at the Capital Hill Block Party on July 20th, so we booked a show on July 19th at Jack London Revue in Portland too. I reached out to the jazz radio station in Portland to try to get some promotion going: Turns out, they love the record, they’ve been playing it on air, and they were excited when I hit them up. As an independent artist, I would never have known that. That show didn’t come to me, the radio station didn’t come to me. It’s all in that classic phrase, “the squeaky hinge gets the oil.” There are opportunities out there where I have to do a certain amount of creating. That’s the grind right now.
TJG: Would you prefer to have more people on your team, or does doing it yourself give you more freedom to build the career you envision?
KO: I would love to have more people on my team. I have a small team of people who are close to me, who care about me. It’s hard to find people, in a way. On one hand, there are people who would love to be part of what I’m doing. In order to get them to be helpful, they have to know how to do all this stuff, and I have to know how to manage them. I make music, I’m an artist, and now I’m slowly becoming a business owner due to circumstance. I’m learning how to communicate with people in order to get stuff done.
On the other hand, there are the established booking agents, managers, publicists. Anybody worth working with needs you to be on a certain level so they can book you. It’s a catch-22. So yes, I have people I work with, but I’m trying to raise myself up to the point where I become somebody who established managers or agents want to work with. They can love the art, but they don’t need to listen to the album, they don’t care. It comes down to “Last time you played Chicago, how many people showed up? How many people will show up now?” I’m slowly learning that you need to spend time doing the thing you have passion for, in order to make the machine work the best. I need to be working on music, and spending time working on other stuff can take away from my artistic thing. I’m working the angles, but I’m grateful for where I’m at, and am trying to do the best artistic work with what I have.
TJG: You have a lot to be proud of. You’re doing the hustle, the art is great. Props!
KO: I appreciate it, man.
TJG: How was the last TIME CAPSULE show with Aaron Parks and Rashaan Carter?
KO: It was good. We played a little quieter, more intimate. It was Valentine’s Day [laughs]. It ended up giving us a good kind of vibe. I even want to play quieter on the next gig. It was so intimate, everybody in the room got to feel it, we got high together.
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