Jump to content

Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth


RogerF

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 122
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

21 hours ago, Justin V said:

I slogged through an hour of it and gave up.  My goal was to make it through the whole thing, but life is too short.  If Washington ever develops into a compelling artist, his inability or unwillingness to self-edit (two three-disc sets in a row?!?) and deliver a concise statement of his vision may hurt him.  

 

19 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Not far off my thoughts either. Compare the impact that, say, Max Roach or Booker Little can achieve on a 30 minute Candid, with profound statements made and compare with the sprawling ‘covering all the bases’ 3CD behemoth.

Or maybe I’m just getting old ! :huh:

Kamasi Washington released an EP in 2017, "Harmony of Difference," which is short, with more sparse arrangements. It may be much more to your taste.

When a track from "Harmony of Difference" was included on an Organissimo.org Blindfold Test, and no one knew who they were listening to, it received only positive comments.

15 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

I just find the overly protective nature of Jazz fans to be fascinating. Not that I’m immune to it, mind you. 

But man, if an artist doesn’t meet an incredibly strict and rigid criteria, then they best leave well enough alone and get off our goddamn lawn! 

The irony being that Jazz, almost by definition, is about exploration and trying new things. But you sure as FUCK better get that new thing right, son! 

Great comment. I have met a lot of rock, country, Latin music, and hip hop fans in the past five years, as I have moved in new social circles after a divorce. No genre of music other than jazz seems to have such negative, judgmental fans the way that jazz does. It was a real eye opener.

 

Edited by Hot Ptah
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Calling in at the local HMV store this afternoon, I noticed that every single Kamasi release (including the EP) was on the wall display, alongside Adele et al, all on ‘special’. No surprise there. What was the surprise was to see a whole stack of Coltrane ‘Both Directions’ CD sets directly underneath, also in the charts and also on special !  :eye:

I bought one of course (the Coltrane, that is).

Edited by sidewinder
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Hot Ptah said:

Great comment. I have met a lot of rock, country, Latin music, and hip hop fans in the past five years, as I have moved in new social circles after a divorce. No genre of music other than jazz seems to have such negative, judgmental fans the way that jazz does. It was a real eye opener.

 

Not so sure. I've encountered quite a few (maybe) negative but definitely judgmental (and pigeonholing) rock and country fans too - yes, and blues too. There stills seems to be a core "purist" blues fraternity who will shudder at the thought of the evolution of blues as in R&B and whatever came afterwards.

As for jazz fans, maybe their "judgmental" attitude to some extent comes from the fact that in the recent few decades there have been times when whatever would not fit any other musical category was lumped in with jazz, though those who lumped this music in apparently had no deeper interest in (actual) jazz (even in a wider stylistic sense) as such but just found the "jazz" marketing tag and its connotations of use to them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've listened to all three discs several times. And will do so again. I like it. My best friend from Texas came to visit me last week and we listened to a few tracks together. He didn't enjoy it as much as I did. . . but then he hadn't heard any of his previous work and in my case it took me a few listens to the "The Epic" to really find all that I liked about it.

I think my favorite is the EP "A Harmony of Difference." Not necessarily because it is more concise, it's a more lively performance. But I do like this one. I do wish it were better mastered, it's not a bad recording, but it needs more "headroom."

Edited by jazzbo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bought 'The Epic' and picked this up the other day. I liked them both, there's a lot of music here and not all of it is pristine and glistening. There are moments where I think 'smooth jazz' rears it's ugly head, but that's OK too- I can tire of the 'Pharoah-meets-Charles Stepney' conceit. I think the danger for Washington is that he's so firmly nailed his colours to the cosmic jazz/hip hop demographic that he has few other directions to move in. His future work better bring something new or I'll be jumping off this particular mothership. Not quite ready to get wet just yet, but the clock is ticking....

 

Oh yeah, ..and he's no John Coltrane either..;)

Edited by imeanyou
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
22 hours ago, jazzbo said:

 

Kamasi Washington and band were on last night's (series finale) episode of Homeland. That was a surprise!

Yeah, I saw that, LOL!  Surprise indeed.  Nice few minutes of him and his group playing.  He's a very sharp dresser, BTW.

On 8/6/2018 at 1:41 AM, imeanyou said:

I bought 'The Epic' and picked this up the other day. I liked them both, there's a lot of music here and not all of it is pristine and glistening. There are moments where I think 'smooth jazz' rears it's ugly head, but that's OK too- I can tire of the 'Pharoah-meets-Charles Stepney' conceit. I think the danger for Washington is that he's so firmly nailed his colours to the cosmic jazz/hip hop demographic that he has few other directions to move in. His future work better bring something new or I'll be jumping off this particular mothership. Not quite ready to get wet just yet, but the clock is ticking....

 

Oh yeah, ..and he's no John Coltrane either..;)

I actually agree right down the line with this.  There's a lot of good music on his albums, but sometimes you get the image of the starship Enterprise blasting across the screen of an old 15-inch B&W tv; I'm definitely talking TOS here, not that gussied-up TNG and later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...