LA-based tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington is best known as a R&B and rap session player, accompanying the likes of Raphael Saadiq, Lauryn Hill and Chaka Khan, and more recently arranging the horn and string sections on Kendrick Lamar’s latest, To Pimp A Butterfly.
He has chosen to announce himself to the jazz world in some style – with a three-CD set, no less, entitled The Epic. And it is an epic recording, in almost every sense of the word. His working band consists of ten musicians, including two drummers and two bass players, including Lamar’s bassist, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner. On many tracks, they are accompanied by a thirty-two-piece orchestra and a twenty-piece choir, conducted by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, who together produce a staggering, quite thunderous sound.
The Epic is also a samurai concept album, of sorts, based on Washington’s recurring dream about young warriors, training for battle, and preparing to take over from an older master. This may sound like a musical metaphor, but Washington insists this is not the case. “It’s the music we’ve all studied, and the history comes from that love,” he explains. “But we’ve never tried to recreate, never tried to copy.” In Washington’s case, that study took place at UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology, which introduced him to faculty members such as guitarist Kenny Burrell and drummer Billy Higgins. In the intervening years, he continued to play jazz on a regular basis with the same set of South Central LA friends, many of whom appear on the The Epic. In fact, the album was apparently edited down from almost 200 tracks they recorded over the last few years.
Washington’s own sound can be traced back to the likes of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, but given the grandiose style of these musical statements, it’s perhaps Pharoah Sanders that provides the best point of comparison. In fact, The Epic has a very early 1970s vibe about it. One can also hear hints of post-Coltrane McCoy Tyner in the playing, and the use of strings and choir remind me of some of Creed Taylor’s work for CTI Records. Come to think of, The Epic would sound amazing as a three-LP box set. Food for thought, perhaps.
Each of the three CDs is designed to tell a story in its own right, in much the same way as the component parts of The Lord Of The Rings, I suppose. But to my mind, the underlying concept is less important than the whole, and the CDs simply divide The Epic into more manageable bite-sized chunks.
As with any triple-album, there is an even better double-album that perhaps should have been released with more judicious editing. The vocal tracks, featuring Patrice Quinn, may help listeners to understand the underlying concept, but if anything, the cheesy lyrics tend to detract from the powerful musical message. Highlights are too many to mention, but the opening track, Change Of The Guard, sets the tone, Tyner-esque piano giving way to a soaring horn refrain and choir, before the pianist takes a solo, struggling to make himself heard above the musical crescendo. Miss Understanding, on Disc Two, has more of a fusion vibe after the lengthy introduction, with furious, fast-paced solos designed to suggest dissension in the ranks. The Magnificent Seven is another big-screen production, with Washington taking an impressive solo over the soaring choir and fearsome drumming.
There are occasional nods to older jazz history, too, including a soulful version of Ray Noble’s standard, Cherokee, but this sounds somewhat out of place here. For the most part, however, The Epic lives up to its name. It is a quite dazzling debut, bursting at the seams with ambition, and at its best, the most exciting jazz album I’ve heard in many years. Highly recommended.
