Kamasi Washington: THE EPIC

[JSngry]

Hopefully somebody catches up to, like, 2002.

Esperanza Spaulding has been trying. but there's so much baggage in getting out of one thing and opening up another.

[clifford_thornton]

How many young people who listen to contemporary country music check out country music of earlier years? How many rap fans check out soul and early r&b? (Maybe the guys who create rap, so they can find out things to sample - but how many listeners?) How many indie rock fans check out early rock & roll?

Deep listeners and casual listeners don't - and won't - likely meet in their approaches. I often try to maintain awareness of a statement Bill Dixon made that's applicable across a variety of scenarios - "you start from where you are – you'll get to the rest in time" - and hope that, in listening, people will get to the rest of it. But it's not always the case, unfortunately.

FWIW, ultimately it seems like Washington's music could've been done better by someone else. That's the upshot.

[JSngry]

But about these kids today, can any of them write a ballad worth a shit that's actually go CHANGES, with more than one "surprise" chord? Because if it's just one, it's not a surprise, it's a con. Write a whole song with changes, and then put the touchy feeley words to it and put that little headbob beat, THAT'S writing a ballad for today.

And let's talk about young African-American's access to The Jazz Iconistry - unless they get to it through crate-digging (osmotic or direct), the only "formal" transmission is likely to be through some Marsailinistic institutional schoolified dogmatics, and we all know where that is set up to lead.

I say encourage the hip-hop-centric individuals to pursue wihout discouragement their paths and discoveryings. Identity is to be claimed, not conferred.

Just...start writing some decent ballads, ok?

[Joe]

I was saying that people in general make no effort to study and learn about what's happened before their time. Given that, you end up musically and culturally with stuff like this recording and other stuff that's out there. Maybe when people listen to Kamasi Washington, they go on to other things that are more worthwhile. Looking at the way things work, I doubt it.

How many young people who listen to contemporary country music check out country music of earlier years? How many rap fans check out soul and early r&b? (Maybe the guys who create rap, so they can find out things to sample - but how many listeners?) How many indie rock fans check out early rock & roll?

Or, on a wider scale, how many people check out histories of parties and candidates before they vote?

Joe, as a teacher, you have to have hope about these kinds of things. Perhaps some of your hope will rub off on me.

In my experience, the issue isn't one of effort or attention or ability. (Though there is that baby / bathwater problem that comes from institutional organs pushing bullshitted history early on.) It is more frequently an issue of whether or not an individual connection to "history" is even an option. Especially when history -- as a concept, as a discipline -- feels like little more than homicide.

But all this is somewhat beyond the matter of the music at hand. Except, as I hear it, the music itself would seem to want to have this conversation, and maybe not for the sake of opening it up so much as sharpening it.

It's complicated.

[paul secor]

I was saying that people in general make no effort to study and learn about what's happened before their time. Given that, you end up musically and culturally with stuff like this recording and other stuff that's out there. Maybe when people listen to Kamasi Washington, they go on to other things that are more worthwhile. Looking at the way things work, I doubt it.

How many young people who listen to contemporary country music check out country music of earlier years? How many rap fans check out soul and early r&b? (Maybe the guys who create rap, so they can find out things to sample - but how many listeners?) How many indie rock fans check out early rock & roll?

Or, on a wider scale, how many people check out histories of parties and candidates before they vote?

Joe, as a teacher, you have to have hope about these kinds of things. Perhaps some of your hope will rub off on me.

In my experience, the issue isn't one of effort or attention or ability. (Though there is that baby / bathwater problem that comes from institutional organs pushing bullshitted history early on.) It is more frequently an issue of whether or not an individual connection to "history" is even an option. Especially when history -- as a concept, as a discipline -- feels like little more than homicide.

But all this is somewhat beyond the matter of the music at hand. Except, as I hear it, the music itself would seem to want to have this conversation, and maybe not for the sake of opening it up so much as sharpening it.

It's complicated.

As a teacher, you would have more experience with all of this than I. And I agree that it's complicated.

[jcam_44]

To get back to K. Washington, listening to the clips that have been posted, what he and his fellow musicians do was done (better) 40 years ago - and I had no use for it back then. Recycled pap.

I dig it; nobody has to like this music.

However, I would say that for some young African-Americans, what Washington et al. are offering enters the category of "history we didn't know we had and which, come to think of it, has actually been denied to us in some important ways." This isn't a nostalgia trip for them. The aspect of discovery here is real.

Somewhat true. But if people made an effort to learn history (and it's out there - only denied if you haven't made an effort to seek it out), they wouldn't need this stuff.

This is really a chicken or egg argument. If they (audience) learned history, they would need this, but I think it clear that Washington has does his history or he wouldn't have created this. I see this as a gateway jazz, but with its promotion from outside of "the jazz world" by brainfeeder etc, the gate may be too wide. I migrated to Jazz from hip hop and my gateway was Christian Scott's Anthem album in 07 when searching for something more engaging then hip hop had become. I would say that album and "the epic" are similar in their audience, but Christian Scott's background was firmly rooted in jazz, and I naturally began digging further down the rabbit hole. I don't listen to Anthem much anymore but it holds a special place with me. I hope "the epic" can do the same for someone else.

[JSngry]

http://www.albany.edu/music/451readings/Jones_Baraka_ChangingSame.pdf

[xybert]

For me, i think the thing that usually gets up dedicated jazz fan's noses when this sort of thing happens is not so much the album in question but the hype that surrounds it. Let's say it's not a bad album, but when there's press saying that it's groundbreaking and pushing boundaries and points a way forward for jazz it's kind of annoying for a number of reasons.

[JSngry]

I don't mind hype, god bless hype, it's how most anybody knows anything, and buyer beware, always. And I totally get the self-determination music aspect of this and all the other things looking to reframe or at least focus the inner conversation(s), but...past that, another reality is that lost time is not found again, and shit, people are just now, figuring out, oh, hey, that Steve Coleman guy's been into some shit after all, gee, who knew? and in a sane and/or sensible world, there would have been a healthy symbiosis with Steve Coleman and R&B, as there was with Miles back in the day. But no, the "mainstream" was all about Pride & Tradition on one side of the street, Gangsta Ho' Me's on the other, and the motherfucker who wasn't on one side or the other got ran over. Retrenchment of Nihilism, same destination, differnt avenues. People wanna say, oh, that's normal, it's always been like that, and well, I'don't know about "usually", I've not lived that long, but as far as "always", no I'll call bullshit on "always" in this regard.

So yeah, lost time, not found, except..not lost, still not really found, yet,

I'm telling you - no matter where all this ends up, it's gonna have to eventually go through here, if only for a minute. Mathematical inevitability, if only because the gift does indeed keep on giving.

[Guy Berger]

Ironically, for me, this thread led to the discovery of the amazing Flying Lotus! Thank you, Kamasi Washington.

(FWIW, i had drinks with a friend of mine who is ~30 and has much hipper music tastes than I do; likes some jazz. Somehow THE EPIC came up and he said, "it's good, right?")

Edited June 11, 2015 by Guy

[clifford_thornton]

Had never listened to Monday Michiru until now. Whoa.

[jazzbo]

Ah, you have lots of good Monday to hear! And it's a good time to discover Monday--used recordings are going for decent used prices from Asia.

[erwbol]

Previewed the first four tracks of The Epic this morning. Couldn't really hold my attention.

[AllenLowe]

considering writing a (musical) piece called Why Kamasi?    Though I know the answer, which is multi-pronged; a lot of it has to do with black critics' sense (and this is still an active attitude) that white people have appropriated so much Black music that it's about time that a young Black man takes the whole retro-back- to-the-future thing and turns it into "making a living." So Kamasi's success, to me, becomes another piece of racialist collateral damage, as it represents a kind of reparation to so many critics -and listeners - who know better aesthetically but to whom this music is densely political as much as it is  quaintly musical. Other wise they would see Kamasi as what he is, a quaint, retro-star with few original ideas.

Edited August 11, 2015 by AllenLowe

[mjazzg]

Maybe so but you see some listeners can find a place and time to enjoy "quaint, retro-star with few original ideas" for what it is. Whether it's collateral damage in anyone's campaign I'll leave to the deep thinkers (and possibly chipped-shouldered) out there. There's no real harm in enjoying the music on face value, as retro as it is. It is OK to like retro as long as you're prepared to weather the storm of the "keepers of the flame".

btw. loved your title referencing Kamasi in the list of your imminent releases on the other thread

[sonnyhill]

Though I know the answer, which is multi-pronged; a lot of it has to do with black critics' sense (and this is still an active attitude) that white people have appropriated so much Black music that it's about time that a young Black man takes the whole retro-back- to-the-future thing and turns it into "making a living." So Kamasi's success, to me, becomes another piece of racialist collateral damage, as it represents a kind of reparation to so many critics -and listeners - who know better aesthetically but to whom this music is densely political as much as it is  quaintly musical. Other wise they would see Kamasi as what he is, a quaint, retro-star with few original ideas.

Black critics, largely, are completely uninterested in jazz.  You will not hear a lot of hoopla concerning Kamasi in most black cultural circles; he's a complete non-factor to most black people culturally.  Black people have largely abandoned jazz and it is, sadly, almost a completely ignored by them.  Jazz and its traditions are dying in the black community.  Most of the people who could make cogent arguments concerning the political aspects of jazz are now dead and have not been replaced.

Kamasi's success is driven by young white people who think that a rapper whom Kamasi associated himself with represents black culture, which they think is cool, and therefore think Kamasi is cool by association.  The merits of the music are secondary, at best.    

[erwbol]

I tried to play the remaining tracks of The Epic, but the dog started howling.

[jazzbo]

I've finally gotten around to checking this out. Some of it I really like. I don't find any of it ground-breaking or innovative or cutting-edge, but there's some nice listening here.

[erwbol]

Also sort of vacuous a lot of the time.

[AllenLowe]

I am seeing lots of African American critical praise of Washington, the most prominent of which is Greg Tate's.

[JSngry]

Kamasi's success is driven by young white people who think that a rapper whom Kamasi associated himself with represents black culture, which they think is cool, and therefore think Kamasi is cool by association.     

That must be why Flying Lotus got the DJ gig on Why? with Hannibal Burris, they're going for the white crowd who thinks that black culture is cool. Comedy Central, playing that race magnet card again, like they did with Dave Chapelle.

I've got to think that at least some black folks think that every time they enjoy other black folks for being other black folks doing something that they all enjoy turning into some reverse-racism hand-wringing is probably a burden that they didn't sign up for, above and beyond the other ones, and one that they will gladly and effortlessly toss on to the Fuck You, Seriously? burn pile, you'd be surprised how tall that thing's getting, anybody got a match?

[xybert]

I'm not all that aware of what critics are saying about The Epic, other than a few light weight blog things. Any serious contemporary criticism that carries any weight is just not on my radar.

With regards to the whole 'white kids liking black culture' etc. I don't know. I think kids these days think black culture is cool, they think white culture is cool, they think asian culture is cool: they're just in to what they think is cool shit regardless. I don't know, different generations maybe? I'm no spring chicken any more but if you accused me of digging hip hop because i think black culture is cool i would look at you pretty quizzically. For kids 10-20 years younger than me it's likely even less of an issue. (Please don't destroy me, i'm not trying to diminish issues of race or the importance of race etc... it's really not a topic that i'm particularly strong on. Maybe you can't separate the music from the race, but i guarantee you that kids aren't consciously going "oooh this is black, it must be cool!")

From what i gather the Brainfeeder label is pretty hot right now, and yeah, that's not gonna hurt in terms of getting exposure to kids (white, black, asian or otherwise), because a lot of it is about context and coming out on Brainfeeder immediately makes it relevant to them. Kind of reminds me of an interview with Matthew Shipp where he was saying that a lot of kids checked out his music in the nineties due to some of his music having been released on Henry Rollins' label. People checked out Sonny Sharrock when he did the music for Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

EDIT: FWIW here's the Shipp thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19sWYT9FcFw

 

Edited August 12, 2015 by xybert

[mjzee]

Jazz Saxophonist Kamasi Washington Shines in the Spotlight - WSJ

 

[AllenLowe]

I don't think it's only a matter of liking black culture - it's a sense (false) that Kamasi is rescuing this music from White appropriation. Really, I have seen a lot of support, from African American critics and fans, for this viewpoint.

[clifford_thornton]

Wow - yeah, not comfortable touching that without more coffee, but I do see what you're saying. The main praise I've seen for Washington's music has been from places like Tiny Mix Tapes, Pitchfork, et al., who primarily deal with the contemporary zeitgeist of post-indie-rock fallout. I think his music "sucks" but don't have enough bandwidth to engage it intelligently. 

What would Darius Jones come up with if he was given a major label budget? Or Micah Gaugh (think he's stepped away from the saxophone, but I digress...) ? Probably a lot more than Washington. Hell, you could go back a few years and dive into some of Matt Shipp's Thirsty Ear collaborations and, even if some of them might seem a little clunky, they're still infinitely more full of possibilities than "The Epic."

So yes, it's unquestionably true that there are a lot more young white folks playing the music now, and I understand the viewpoint of some that Washington could be 'taking it back.' Valid point. The problem is that whether you hold it up against Billy Harper or Ingrid Laubrock, "The Epic" isn't particularly good.

Edited August 24, 2015 by clifford_thornton