The
story begins with a man on high. He is an old man, a warrior, and the guardian
to the gates of a city. Two miles below his mountainous perch, he observes a
dojo, where a group of young men train night and day. Eventually, the old man
expects a challenger to emerge. He hopes for the day of his destruction, for
this is the cycle of life.
Finally
the doors fly open and three young men burst forth to challenge the old master.
The first man is quick, but not strong enough. The second is quick, and strong,
but not wise enough. The third stands tall, and overtakes the master. The
changing of the guard has at long last been achieved.
But then
the old man wakes up. He looks down at the dojo and realizes he's been
daydreaming. The dojo below exists, but everyone in training is yet a child. By
the time they grow old enough to challenge the old man, he has disappeared.
This is,
in essence, a true story and a carefully constructed musical daydream, one that
will further unfold on May 5, 2015 in a brazen release from young Los Angeles
jazz giant, composer, bandleader, and saxophonist Kamasi Washington. The Epic
is unlike anything jazz has seen, and not just because it emanates from the
boundary-defying Brainfeeder, which isn't so much a label in the traditional
sense as it is an unfurling experiment conducted by the underground producer
Flying Lotus, who features Washington on his recent releases Cosmogramma and
You're Dead!. ·
"He
just plays the craziest shit, man. I mean, everything - the past, present, the
future," Flying Lotus says, whose family lineage includes one of
Washington's direct musical forebears, John Coltrane. "It's hard to find
unique voices in this music. Especially in jazz, more so lately, everybody is
trying to do the same shit. I don't want to hear 'My Favorite Things' anymore.
What I am hearing is a leader among artists."
The Epic
is a 172-minute, three-record set that includes a 32-piece orchestra, a
20-person choir, and 17 songs overlaid with a compositional score written by
Washington. Pulsing underneath is an otherworldly ten-piece band, each member
of which is individually regarded as among the best young musicians on the
planet - including bassist Thundercat and his brother, drummer Ronald Bruner
Jr., bassist (yes, there are two) Miles Mosley, drummer Tony Austin (of course
there are two), keyboard player Brandon Coleman, pianist Cameron Graves, and
trombonist Ryan Porter. Patrice Quinn's ethereal vocals round out the ensemble.
The band
are all from Los Angeles, mostly South Central, and its members -- who call
themselves variously "The Next Step" and the "The West Coast Get
Down" -- have been congregating since they were barely teenagers in a
backyard shack in Inglewood. Washington, 32, has known Bruner since he was two.
The rest met, at various stages, by the time they were in high school. The
hours they have put into the music, playing together and practicing alone,
total cumulatively in the tens of thousands.
"Nothing
compares to these guys," says Barbara Sealy, the former West Coast
director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, who has championed Washington
and his compatriots since they were barely teenagers. "Nobody. I challenge
any group to go out on stage with them and see if they can keep up with
it...Kamasi is at the top of his game, and only getting better."
And the
story The Epic tells, without words but rather through some combination of
magic, mastery, and sheer force of imagination, is the story of Kamasi
Washington, the Next Step, and their collective mission: to remove jazz from
the shelf of relics and make it new, unexpected, and dangerous again. They seek
to both honor and alter tradition: as The Epic's opening track announces, they
are the "Changing of the Guard." The sound can be felt like flames,
sometimes waving in the coziness of a fireplace, in other moments sweeping everything
around like a backdraft. But Washington is always in control of the burning.
Kamasi
Washington · The Epic
Brainfeeder
Records · Release Date: May 5, 2015
