So now that the new epoch is here, and all the music associated with this page is available in one place, we're gonna have a birthday bash for one of the newer jazz cats.
He is turning just 41 today!!!! Forty-one!!!!! I wanna be 41 for my next birthday, can I?
I've never covered him before, so he fits my new criteria of "haven't blogged them yet" and "isn't a here today, gone later today construct, manufactured by the forces of profit".
He's been a presence roughly since the beginning of Century 21 here, but didn't really record his first solo record proper until 2015.
I've heard him criticized for not being avant-garde enough (whatever the f that means), but I feel he transmits the whole history of African-American music through his stuff pretty effectively.
He may never play on a Super Bowl halftime show, but I dig the music of Kamasi Washington just the same, you know?
Take his first big record, The Epic. If there's a debut triple album that's more aptly titled, it doesn't come immediately to mind.
Kind of a cross between Max Roach's Lift Every Voice and Sing and Gary Bartz's Singerella -- with a side of Horace Silver-N-Voices tossed in for flavor -- this is that burning Pharoah Sanders kind of exalted feel, but with massed, wordless voices out of Judgment Day weaving through it throughout.
He debuted this record in 2015 at the Regent Theater in LA, and apparently the entire four-hour concert was recorded by the BBC. Only about 83 minutes of this incendiary history lesson has ever been broadcast, and that's what I've got for you all today, courtesy of a tremendous remaster by my friend Tom Phillips.
Kamasi Washington
Regent Theater
Los Angeles, California
5.4.2015
01 KW announcement
02 Askim
03 Miss Understanding
04 Seven Prayers
05 Changing of the Guard
06 The Magnificent 7
07 FM announcement
Total time: 1:23:31
disc break goes after Track 04
Kamasi Washington - saxophones
Ryan Porter - trombone
Dontae Winslow - trumpet
Cameron Graves - piano
Brandon Coleman - keyboards & electronics
Miles Mosley - bass
Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner - bass
Tony Austin - drums
Ronald Bruner - drums
Leon Mobley - percussion
Patrice Quinn - vocals
String and Choir Conductor - Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Paul Cartwright - violin
Tylana Renga - violin
Jim Simone - violin
Molly Rogers - viola
Andrea Witt - viola
Ginger Murphy - cello
Artyom Manukyan - cello
Charles Jones, Dawn Norsleet, Mashica Winslow, Nia Andrews, Steven Wayne, Taylor Graves, Thalma de Freitas - vocals
merge of two master captures of two BBC FM broadcasts
remastered by Tom Phillips, December 2015
(performance date corrected by EN)
566 MB FLAC/February 2022 archive link
566 MB FLAC/February 2022 archive link
That's my story for today, accompanied by the most auspicious birthday wishes for Kamasi Washington... as well as the hope that you won't go missin' and dare to take a listen!--J.
