Kamasi Washington and his band blow the house down.

By Daniel Jaramillo
 

In the world of contemporary Jazz the name Kamasi Washington has been mentioned in high praise. The young 34-year-old saxophonist distinguished himself a great deal by working as a session musician with heavyweight hip-hop artists and producers such as Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill and Flying lotus. Washington also released a triple disc album titled “The Epic” that was 173 minutes worth of music released in 2015 on the Brainfeeder label. The title is well suited as the music is performed and recorded by a 10-piece jazz band, a 32-piece orchestra and a 20-person choir. It received great acclaim and fans and critiques were excited to hear jazz that was reminiscent of John Coltrane. Whilst Coltrane's playing and improvisation influenced Washington, he has developed his own style of jazz that is influenced by other genres such as Hip-Hop, Classical music and Gospel. 

Washington grew up in Los Angeles and many of his peers were into Gangster Rap, which Washington embraced as a teenager and brought the attitude of Gangster Rap into his style of Jazz music. He went on to study music at the prestigious Hamilton High School of music. Hailed as “the King of L.A Jazz” Washington has been touring in Australia as part of the Byron Bay Blues festival and has just played two sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney. 

The Sydney gig was at the Metro Theatre and the crowd was quite diverse ranging from older jazz heads to younger fans that probably heard of Washington through his collaborations with the various hip hop artists he has worked with. The opening act was Lewis Butle a DJ spinning classic jazz tracks from the 40’s and 50’s but he also dropped in a few more recent Hip-Hop and RnB tunes. By 9:30pm The crowd finally got to see the bigger than life figure of Kamasi Washington and his band take the stage to perform Jazz at an “epic” level, the musicians were all very accomplished and really put everything into their performance, the dual drummers gave the band the power of a steam train at full throttle 

Washington greeted the crowd with a few funny stories about how he met some of his band mates and the crowd responded well to his lighthearted humor. He then brought his father who is an accomplished flute player as a special guest to join his band on stage, and together they paid tribute to Malcolm X with a track called “Malcolm’s Theme” from the “The Epic” album. 

Washington's playing was really energetic at times blowing his saxophone furiously like a hurricane and other times he would play a calmer tune that was like listening to water streaming down the river to even out the performance. The set list of the night comprised of songs from his debut album “The Epic” but there were also a few new songs that the audience had not heard before, perhaps a teaser from Washington’s next studio offering or maybe he was testing out some new compositions. Either way the promise of another great album was evident throughout the night. 

Halfway through the gig Washington took a break from blowing his saxophone and gave the spotlight to his two drummers who both took their solo’s to the next level and showed the audience just what drummers are humanly capable of. The band featured female vocalist Patrice Quinn who also gave the music another dynamic and showed us that Jazz is as diverse as the people who make it. The audience left the venue with a good feeling, content that they had just witness a truly special band, and because jazz is normally more intimate played in small clubs and cafe's, to see a performance of this level on a much bigger stage like a rock concert was something to cherish for any fan of jazz or fusion music.