Life began for Kamasi Washington on February 18, 1981 in Los Angeles, Calif… Read Full Bio ↴Life began for Kamasi Washington on February 18, 1981 in Los Angeles, California. In the Washington family music was more of a prerequisite than a privilege. But Kamasi never saw it that way, his love for music began at first sound. His father, Rickey Washington is a professional saxophonist by night and a high school music teacher by day. Kamasi’s mother, Valerie Washington is an accomplished flutist who fell in love with the world of science and became a high school chemistry teacher after her stint as a genetic researcher. By the age of two Kamasi had already began to play the drums and piano, the only thing that kept him away from the wind instruments at that early age was his lack of dental development. He began his exploration into the world of the reeds and brass when he was about seven and his father gave him a clarinet. By the age of twelve Kamasi had found his voice in the form of a tenor saxophone, in fact it was the same saxophone that his father played in high school.
Over the next year Kamasi’s development and devotion to music had out grown his academic environment. So he transferred from The Los Angeles Center of Enriched Studies (one the top academic high schools in the nation) and enrolled into the Hamilton High School Music Academy. It was around this time that Kamasi also joined The Multi School Jazz Band (M.S.J.B.), an assembly of the finest young jazz musicians in Los Angeles County and led by Reginald Andrews the same man that taught Kamasi’s father in high school. Because of the sheer vastness of talent that he was surrounded by it was in The Multi School Jazz Band that Kamasi was most inspired during his high school years. Through M.S.J.B. Kamasi was also able to meet, learn, and create relationships with many of his musical idols such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Horse Tapscot, Gerald Wilson, and many others. In Kamasi’s senior year of high school he had the opportunity to compete in the John Coltrane Saxophone competition, in which he received the first place award. As an additional benefit to winning the competition the band of M.S.J.B. members that he assembled to accompany him had such an immediate connection that they decided to stay together and form a group that soon after would be known as “The Young Jazz Giants”.
This fiery group of “Young Giants” wasted no time in spreading their musical wings and flying all over the Los Angeles jazz scene spreading the good news that jazz was still alive and in very good hands. It was during this time that Kamasi became interested in composition and he started writing his own music. Over the next year “The Young Jazz Giants” had really began to develop their own sound and were creating a lot of excitement in their community.
After graduating from high school Kamasi began his studies at U.C.L.A. were the facility included some of the finest musicians in the history of Jazz, such as Kenny Burrell, Billy Higgins, Harold Land, Lew Mathews, Garnett Brown, Jeff Clayton, Gerald Wilson, and many others. By the end of his first year at U.C.L.A. Kamasi began performing with many of his professors. In fact he joined Gerald Wilson’s big band and later became the only member of his regular Los Angeles band to be invited to play on his latest album “In My Time” which was recorded in New York. During the summer after Kamasi’s first year at U.C.L.A. the head of a new record label called “Bird Man Records” heard him playing with “The Young Jazz Giants” and became very interested in making an album with the group. So Kamasi recorded his first album it was called The Young Jazz Giants. The completion of the album seemed like the “big break” for “The Young Jazz Giants” but unforeseen delays in the products release ended in the album being released almost two years after its completion. Ironically the talent level of the group was far too high for any of the members of the band to stay “ready and waiting” for too long, thus “The Young Jazz Giants” unofficially disbanded.
Kamasi began to take interest and became influenced by many other forms of music, from European Classical to Hip Hop. This really opened his mind to the fact that all of the different forms that music takes are equally relevant. From this Kamasi ended up playing with many of the most legendary musicians of the current variety such as Snoop Dog, Raphael Saadiq, and many others. Yet during this time Kamasi despite his newfound respect for all of the forms of music realized that Jazz was still the music that was closest to his heart. So he started a new band that would be able to play the new music that he is creating. The new group is called “The Next Step” and that’s precisely what Kamasi intends on taking.
(2) Kamasi Washington didn't pick up a saxophone until he was 13 years old, but by that point, he'd been playing several other instruments. That's when he found his calling. Within a couple years, he was the lead tenor saxophonist at Hamilton High School Music Academy in his native Los Angeles. After graduation, he attended UCLA to study ethnomusicology. While enrolled at UCLA, he recorded a self-titled album with Young Jazz Giants, a quartet he had formed with Cameron Graves and brothers Ronald Bruner, Jr. and Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner, released in 2004. From that point, Washington continually performed and recorded with an impressive variety of major artists across several genres, including Snoop Dogg, Raphael Saadiq, Gerald Wilson, McCoy Tyner, George Duke, and PJ Morton. In 2014 alone, Washington demonstrated tremendous range with appearances on Broken Bells' After the Disco, Harvey Mason's Chameleon, Stanley Clarke's Up, and Flying Lotus' You're Dead!, among other albums that covered indie rock, contemporary and progressive jazz, and experimental electronic music.
The following year, Washington contributed to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly and finally debuted as a leader with The Epic, released on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label. An expansive triple album nearly three hours in duration, it involved the other three-quarters of Young Jazz Giants -- by then part of his larger ten piece collective, altnerately known as The Next Step and West Coast Get Down-- string orchestra and choir conducted by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson.
The Epic was a critical and commerial success. Not only did it land at number three on the jazz charts, it also found its way on to independent albums and heatseekers charts as well. Washington and his band were not only able to tour the U.S., but to play in Europe and Japan as well. ~ Andy Kellman
Over the next year Kamasi’s development and devotion to music had out grown his academic environment. So he transferred from The Los Angeles Center of Enriched Studies (one the top academic high schools in the nation) and enrolled into the Hamilton High School Music Academy. It was around this time that Kamasi also joined The Multi School Jazz Band (M.S.J.B.), an assembly of the finest young jazz musicians in Los Angeles County and led by Reginald Andrews the same man that taught Kamasi’s father in high school. Because of the sheer vastness of talent that he was surrounded by it was in The Multi School Jazz Band that Kamasi was most inspired during his high school years. Through M.S.J.B. Kamasi was also able to meet, learn, and create relationships with many of his musical idols such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Horse Tapscot, Gerald Wilson, and many others. In Kamasi’s senior year of high school he had the opportunity to compete in the John Coltrane Saxophone competition, in which he received the first place award. As an additional benefit to winning the competition the band of M.S.J.B. members that he assembled to accompany him had such an immediate connection that they decided to stay together and form a group that soon after would be known as “The Young Jazz Giants”.
This fiery group of “Young Giants” wasted no time in spreading their musical wings and flying all over the Los Angeles jazz scene spreading the good news that jazz was still alive and in very good hands. It was during this time that Kamasi became interested in composition and he started writing his own music. Over the next year “The Young Jazz Giants” had really began to develop their own sound and were creating a lot of excitement in their community.
After graduating from high school Kamasi began his studies at U.C.L.A. were the facility included some of the finest musicians in the history of Jazz, such as Kenny Burrell, Billy Higgins, Harold Land, Lew Mathews, Garnett Brown, Jeff Clayton, Gerald Wilson, and many others. By the end of his first year at U.C.L.A. Kamasi began performing with many of his professors. In fact he joined Gerald Wilson’s big band and later became the only member of his regular Los Angeles band to be invited to play on his latest album “In My Time” which was recorded in New York. During the summer after Kamasi’s first year at U.C.L.A. the head of a new record label called “Bird Man Records” heard him playing with “The Young Jazz Giants” and became very interested in making an album with the group. So Kamasi recorded his first album it was called The Young Jazz Giants. The completion of the album seemed like the “big break” for “The Young Jazz Giants” but unforeseen delays in the products release ended in the album being released almost two years after its completion. Ironically the talent level of the group was far too high for any of the members of the band to stay “ready and waiting” for too long, thus “The Young Jazz Giants” unofficially disbanded.
Kamasi began to take interest and became influenced by many other forms of music, from European Classical to Hip Hop. This really opened his mind to the fact that all of the different forms that music takes are equally relevant. From this Kamasi ended up playing with many of the most legendary musicians of the current variety such as Snoop Dog, Raphael Saadiq, and many others. Yet during this time Kamasi despite his newfound respect for all of the forms of music realized that Jazz was still the music that was closest to his heart. So he started a new band that would be able to play the new music that he is creating. The new group is called “The Next Step” and that’s precisely what Kamasi intends on taking.
(2) Kamasi Washington didn't pick up a saxophone until he was 13 years old, but by that point, he'd been playing several other instruments. That's when he found his calling. Within a couple years, he was the lead tenor saxophonist at Hamilton High School Music Academy in his native Los Angeles. After graduation, he attended UCLA to study ethnomusicology. While enrolled at UCLA, he recorded a self-titled album with Young Jazz Giants, a quartet he had formed with Cameron Graves and brothers Ronald Bruner, Jr. and Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner, released in 2004. From that point, Washington continually performed and recorded with an impressive variety of major artists across several genres, including Snoop Dogg, Raphael Saadiq, Gerald Wilson, McCoy Tyner, George Duke, and PJ Morton. In 2014 alone, Washington demonstrated tremendous range with appearances on Broken Bells' After the Disco, Harvey Mason's Chameleon, Stanley Clarke's Up, and Flying Lotus' You're Dead!, among other albums that covered indie rock, contemporary and progressive jazz, and experimental electronic music.
The following year, Washington contributed to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly and finally debuted as a leader with The Epic, released on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label. An expansive triple album nearly three hours in duration, it involved the other three-quarters of Young Jazz Giants -- by then part of his larger ten piece collective, altnerately known as The Next Step and West Coast Get Down-- string orchestra and choir conducted by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson.
The Epic was a critical and commerial success. Not only did it land at number three on the jazz charts, it also found its way on to independent albums and heatseekers charts as well. Washington and his band were not only able to tour the U.S., but to play in Europe and Japan as well. ~ Andy Kellman
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MISHU
I'm in the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi right now.
Its 53 minutes past 5 am and its Raining,
I'm all tucked in and relaxed while listening to this.
Man,
This must be what heaven sounds like.
This right here is just Everything
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
This Piece has literally made Love to Me, artistically and I'm so Happy I came across this, right now.
Tori Monique
You know it’s MAGIC when the back of your brain gets tingly, you’re eyes begin to water and you can visualize the journey the song is taking you through.
Kirst Sub
No friend, that's a serious medical condition
Lidda Berkley
Ooooh... U felt it, huh?
The Zigzagman
While it's playing you think it will never end.
Once it does, you feel the weight of its absence.
THOTH
similar to love
Ethan Hill
The horns are “heavy” almost literally. Not a dirge but not a TOWER OF POWER horn arrangement. I might include this on my requested wake playlist. And damn the singers and strings or synthesizers soar. Guy is scheduled to perform at the NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL Summer 2023. I might attend to see him perform under that banner.
Mark Nardone
I met the man on a Saturday night at a brimming Blue Whale in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles... I have been playing sax for a year now and I like to talk to all the saxophonists I hear live. I had no idea who the man was and as he left the stage and headed over to the bar, he was using a very small wooden cane to walk and he seemed much different from the rest of the quintet he was with, as he didn’t seem as untouchable as I find most musicians of his caliber — though, I suppose it’s easy to think that when most people at that venue are always waiting to approach the musicians.
He had this sort of slow, steady saunter, an impenetrable calm about him that was quite out of place in a city like Los Angeles. He seemed impervious to the bustle and chatter around him, like he walked around with his own quiet force field. His slow approach felt like a freight train bound for collision, yet, very much graceful and almost ethereal. Nervous and reluctant, I stopped him on his way to the bar and I asked him if it was alright if I trouble him for some advice. He said, "Of course, man!", with a warmth that felt like we’d known each other for years! He told me that all it took to get to where he was, was to just keep playing our horn. I was floored that it was that simple. It took me a moment to process the sheer simplicity of what he’d told me — it was something absolutely forlorn to me, being the confused, anxiety-ridden, overtly cerebral, and pedantic twenty-two-year-old that I was at the time! I told him that I would be on that stage one day and he looked deep into my eyes, offering his hand, and asked me what my name was. I shook his hand and told him my name, as a smile I hadn’t felt in months slowly crept over my face. He said it was nice to meet me and gave a short bow of his head. After I returned the gesture, we both went our separate ways. Walking back to my seat, I felt an inescapable calm come over me, a peaceful surety I’d never had throughout the short span of my entire music career. I like to think it was the knowledge felt from him that life didn’t have to be so complicated, that all would happen as it should, so long as I did what I could. Or maybe it wouldn’t. It’s amazing what the mere presence of a person can do. The essence of who he was could be felt almost immediately! And I had no idea who he was, I was just floored by his insane modal solo!
I’ll never forget that day. It’s crazy to think about how terrified I was upon first approaching him, but, looking back, I’m really glad that I did. It sure helped that he was quite tender and sincere, and It boggles my mind how he stays so humble with the level of notoriety he has in the music sphere. I’ve always looked up to the likes of John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and Miles Davis since I started playing the saxophone. I can now say, sincerely, that I look up to Kamasi Washington — a revelation on the saxophone and a pioneer for music as a whole, but, moreover, an astounding human being!
childpleaz85
Cool story bro....seriously, thats a dope ass story lol
Mark Nardone
What I find to be most astounding and, actually, quite funny, is that it was PAINFULLY obvious I had no idea who the man was and, looking back, I can say with conviction he was completely aware of the aforementioned circumstance. He didn’t seem to mind at all. A curious warmth about him betrays the stoic look upon his resting face. It baffles me how he stays so humble despite his status in the music industry. I will never forget that day. Remember, folks, according to him, all it takes to be successful in music is to “Just keep playing, man.”
Jonathan Rivera
Mark Nardone Jazz is lame 😴