Kamasi Washington: THE EPIC

[medjuck]

I do not think the views expressed about the album are a product of suspicion of the popular; it's about the content of the album. If a Gerald Cleaver or Mary Halvorson record were afforded the same "buzz," I don't think you would see the same negative reaction.

I'm not sure of that. I don't recall any newcomer getting acclaim where there wasn't some negative carping on this board. (Then again, I don't recall a lot of things.)

[Guy Berger]

It seems to me that some of the response to Washington is based on a fear of populism as much as anything else. Here's someone playing Jazz and getting a degree of attention and 'buzz' but I think I detect discomfort as much with that buzz as there is with his music. So much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth with regards to the unpopularity of Jazz and its future seems so often predicated on a very limited definition of what Jazz is and the despair is often coded with criticism of more popular 'sub genres' of the music (i.e. fusion, soul jazz, jazz influenced hip hop etc). To the 'keepers of the flame' it would seem that the very step away from the 'tradition' that can attract more ears is the one step beyond. The wagons are being circled in a decreasingly tight circumference whilst the rest of the world gets on making music and not worrying about the existential threat that the defenders are so concerned about.

I disagree. When I listened to The Epic, I heard a "watered down" version of things that I had already been done. That in and of itself is not a bad thing. If serves as a "gateway" album to young people exploring jazz more, it definitely is not a bad thing. It is not a bad album, I just think that the praise that it has been receiving is overdone. If a teenager came to me who had never really listed to jazz before asked me to recommend "recent" recordings I would point that person to something like Roy Hargrove's Earfood or Aaron Park's Invisible Cinema.

I do not think the views expressed about the album are a product of suspicion of the popular; it's about the content of the album. If a Gerald Cleaver or Mary Halvorson record were afforded the same "buzz," I don't think you would see the same negative reaction. In a way it is kind of off putting that just because Washington is affiliated with a rapper, he gets to be treated like some sort of monarch of jazz.

I don't really think "watered down" really applies here, unless you're willing to apply it to much of the other "recently recorded" (i.e. post-1990 or even post-1980) jazz (in nearly ever sub-genre) that's frequently discussed on this board.

Anyway, I'm listening to this right now on Spotify and it sounds pretty good. Not the best thing I've ever heard, certainly, but I'm enjoying it and if it's introducing more people to this music, terrific!

Edited June 6, 2015 by Guy

[ep1str0phy]

It seems to me that some of the response to Washington is based on a fear of populism as much as anything else. Here's someone playing Jazz and getting a degree of attention and 'buzz' but I think I detect discomfort as much with that buzz as there is with his music. So much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth with regards to the unpopularity of Jazz and its future seems so often predicated on a very limited definition of what Jazz is and the despair is often coded with criticism of more popular 'sub genres' of the music (i.e. fusion, soul jazz, jazz influenced hip hop etc). To the 'keepers of the flame' it would seem that the very step away from the 'tradition' that can attract more ears is the one step beyond. The wagons are being circled in a decreasingly tight circumference whilst the rest of the world gets on making music and not worrying about the existential threat that the defenders are so concerned about.

Jazz isn't dying, but its (previous) fans are.

Anyway, you guys have perked up my interest - will give it a listen.

I think that the "don't hate the player, hate the game" adage applies here-

The fact that there has been so much hoopla surrounding both Washington's album and To Pimp a Butterfly testifies to the notions that (a) jazz people and jazz audiences are receptive to the infusion of new blood and (b) there is nothing inherently inaccessible about jazz as a music, even if there is a degree of toxicity to "jazz" as both an institution and genre (in a mass appeal/populist sense). Yes, a lot of folks here may not find a lot to appreciate about Kamasi's music, but it's worth noting that so many people took the time to (bother to) listen.

I sense that a lot of what makes it difficult to penetrate the "Jazz Market" in any meaningful way is couched in a degree of equilibrium. For any number of reasons, the market share of this music has decreased and continues to decrease in a very active way, and the end result is a lack of resources--compositions, styles, and people get regurgitated in jazz because the reach of the jazz press, the enterprising spirit of the musicians, etc. are overextended. Touring jazz musicians can't always book jazz clubs in the Bay Area anymore--two high profile ECM artists booked DIY spaces in Northern CA in the past few months alone. You wake up to discover that it's hard enough to subsist, let alone get over.

This is why I bring up Braxton. The AACM guys who so many younger guys look up to comprise a sense of creative leftism that has been "left" for a very long time. Hendrix was still alive when the Art Ensemble and Braxton were cutting their first, epochal recordings. I've heard people call Rowe-ian EAI cutting-edge, but AMM was already making some aggressively minimal music (with at least similar operating procedures) as far back as the 70's, maybe 80's. Even if this music still has the power to excite and shock, I find it impossible to think of any of it as qualitative fringe music anymore--and if it is, why does that say about us as improvising musicians?

In a way, that's why I kind of have to give it up to guys like Flying Lotus, Kendrick, Washington, etc.--not necessarily because their music does represent a kind of cutting-edge (an argument really could be made for Flying Lotus, in this regard), but because these are guys with definitive jazz roots and relationships whose creativity is unencumbered by the unbearable weight of its genesis. What if someone with Washington's resources and irreverence shows up and has the vision and technicality to back it up? The infrastructure can and needs to "be there." Mary Halvorson may be cutting some spectacular music these days, but I've long gotten the sense that the next sound to really jolt us to attention (in a "jazz" sense, at least) may arrive in a form none of us will have anticipated.

[Steve Reynolds]

I love your posts, Karl

That being said (sounds like a Seinfeld joke), I can't even keep up with Halvorsen's recordings, let alone a number of other improvisors making music today. That's part of the problem. I will see her with her Thumbscrew trio on 6/20. They are NOT playing at The Village Vanguard but the way it us going with the old cellar club actually booking some musicians or bands that don't play totally straight jazz, that time could come sooner than later. I mean Oliver Lake played there for the first time well past his 70th birthday this spring.

Obviously all part of the problem

Halvorsen is a good example as her playing is thoroughly accesable yet she still plays in little places with relatively small attendance. I'll show up at 8:00 for 8:30 door and I'll be first in line. There are about 40-50 good seats at Cornelia Street.

Despite her playing being dynamic and captivating and accesable, NONE of the jazz listeners who listen to traditional bop, bebop, hard bop etc listen to her. Read the WAYLT thread for evidence. Close minded jazz listeners kill the music.

I have so many great musicians I want to listen to that I havn't listened to very much - live or on record - that damn if I'm gonna spend $$ and buy a 3 CD set from this guy.

Just thinking of saxophonists playing in NYC these day you have Darius Jones, Travis Laplante, JD Allen, Jason Rigby, and scores of others that I just havn't got around to spending serious time with - that will come first

Edited June 6, 2015 by Steve Reynolds

[AllenLowe]

to me the weight of my music's genesis is eminently beareable. Tradition is a burden only to people of Wynton's ilk or to those with an ideological axe to grind. I don't think it's fair to call us out for not liking this music because our motives are suspect. My motives are musical. I listen to everything.

as for those strings, only goes to show that recording techniques have so flattened out the sound of music that we can no longer tell the difference. And truthfully, this is such slick and empty music that it doesn't really matter.

as for Halvorson, spectacular is not the word I would use to describe her. She seems to be part of a scene full of talented musicians suffering a crisis of the spirit, but later for that one, since no one else but me seems to think so.

Edited June 6, 2015 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

I think you can go to any urban center and find African-American bands playing to African-American audiences music(s) that are very similar in style and quality to most of what Washington's put out here (and perhaps more resonant in terms of that elusive "substance"). You're likely to not hear about them because they're local, they play lounges, and they play a lot of cover tunes, and haven't thought to play the iconography card yet. But the end results...I've not heard the entire album, and probably won't, but most of what I've heard...there's no surprises there, which is just an observation, not a value judgement, because "surprising" people is not really the object of this game.

Nothing against Kama Washington or any of that, just...I've heard any number of gifted players with jazz ears play club dates and turn routine material into muscular dance music more than a few times. It's kinda normal, really. The gigs don't call for the uptempo burn stuff, but it's implicit in everything, really.

Like I said earlier, I'm glad there are people who are finding a need for this type of thing, and I'm glad there are people meeting those needs. It's a good thing on both ends. But...it's for the younger people who haven't ah it yet, and that's not who I am in either regard.

[Steve Reynolds]

to me the weight of my music's genesis is eminently beareable. Tradition is a burden only to people of Wynton's ilk or to those with an ideological axe to grind. I don't think it's fair to call us out for not liking this music because our motives are suspect. My motives are musical. I listen to everything.

as for those strings, only goes to show that recording techniques have so flattened out the sound of music that we can no longer tell the difference. And truthfully, this is such slick and empty music that it doesn't really matter.

as for Halvorson, spectacular is not the word I would use to describe her. She seems to be part of a scene full of talented musicians suffering a crisis of the spirit, but later for that one, since no one else but me seems to think so.

I don't know if I used the descriptor "spectacular" as it is not apt, but do think that a lack of spirit is not an issue with Mary. I find her playing to be vibrant and alive.

I will say that if the group of musicians that you may be in part referring to are the ones I think they are, they do suffer from an overly academic overly composed approach at times which leads to a certain dullness. I disagree with many here that Tim Berne's music is often way too composed sucking the life out of otherwise brilliant improvisors. One's mileage often varies.

I also think Tony Malaby is just about the most exciting improvisor with a saxophone playing jazz today - certainly when playing with something close to time in a jazz mode - yet many here barely give him a listen for whatever reason.

With a trio of him, Hebert and Mintz last winter, it was two sets of pure jazz - free, straight and invented, and he and the trio were overwhelmingly fucking brilliant. The tradition was honored and certainly was a weight that the trio handled and embraced yet made music completely of this time. An example of what jazz is all about. They played a Mintz tune named Cannonball that only the most jaded or stuck in the past listeners would not have loved.

Problem is so few seem interested.

[ep1str0phy]

Thanks for the kind words, Steve, and I do agree that there is a degree of inaccessibility to Halvorson's music that I may have given short shrift. Hiding within the abundant critical praise for To Pimp a Butterfly was a sort of mass suspicion of jazz and experimentalism in general, though my point (and I think this speaks more to what Allen said) is more that there's fringe music and fringe music-

Allen, I'm not sure if this was addressed at me, but I would never criticize anyone for not liking something on musical grounds--quite the opposite, in this case. I, too, would rather listen to Africa Brass, Charles Tolliver's Strata-Easts, McCoy on Milestone, etc. etc. than Kamasi, but the ennui that informs my feelings on Washington's music is not the same ennui that I feel upon ruminating the future of "the music."

I'm fascinated by the phrase "crisis of the spirit," and while I'm not sure I agree, I can kind of see what you mean. A guitarist friend of mine once criticized Halvorson's use of distortion as disingenuous--as if she were a qualitative jazz guitarist "playing" at the sound of noisy rage. This criticism may or may not be fair--I get the sense that Halvorson's relationship with the sounds of indie rock is a real and honest one--but I know what he was getting at. I feel the same way when listening to Pat Martino's fusion music, and a lot of jazz guitarists in the wake of jazz-rock were guilty of this--using distortion as a sort of crass repackaging, rather than recognizing what it does to and can do for your instrument. In other words, the sound may be there, but not "the soul."

This is why, although the music doesn't really excite me, I'm kind of rooting for guys like Kamasi. So much of the music from that LA scene is lacking in any sort of existential crisis, which is an absolute reversal of a lot of modern jazz and improvised music. Quite a bit of the music in NY is boundlessly virtuosic but (speaking to "crisis of the spirit") seems to be searching for a reason to exist. I'm squarely of the mind that the shape of (X) to come can and should arrive prepackaged with its raison d'etre.

Edited June 7, 2015 by ep1str0phy

[sonnyhill]

I do not think anyone who loves the music is rooting against Kamasi. I hope he sells a whole bunch copies of the recording and that other labels that traditionally do not release "jazz" records follow Brainfeeder's lead and release their own "jazz" records.

With respect to Halvorson -- different strokes and all that -- but to me, she is already a "made" woman. She has put in enough good work over the years to be considered amongst the vanguard of improvised music.

[JSngry]

Yeah....I kinda think that anybody looking to get inside a Jazz Trojan Horse behind this not gonna have any surprise happy endings or anything.

Remember "jazz-rock", back when rock was really popular and mattered and shit like that? And how jazz fans of the day were either revolted or hopeful that the kids were finally coming around to some good music and all that, and then kids started coming around who played jazz with a rock mind and vice-versa and that was, like, Gil Evans' last bands, and it was beautiful, but it was not no Jazz Trojan Horse, that's for sure, and a lot of Old Jazz People just did not dig it at all. But Gil said it himself, these kids never danced to Benny Goodman in person, why should I expect them to play like the did? Paraphrased, but yes, that was what Gil Evans thought about it.

Well, hip-hop now. Only I don't see where Kamasi Washington has that Gil Evans mojo, more like...Creed Taylor. Creed Taylor from the William T. Fischer era we all are trying to have such fond memories of. Y'all remember that great run on C-Strata-IStone? Impact Like The Red Wind Clay, that's the one everybody remembers, but go back and check your discographies, jazz fans, there's more that you're just have not rememberinged yet.

And Quincy Jones the way he would hope to be remembered, what he got done as far as people looking at things, not how he went about getting it done. Yes, Rambo, we DO get to win this time!

Otherwise, jazz as music has mattered all that it's going to matter to those for whom it's going to matter. Going forth, it's all about attitude, iconography, assumed (correctly more often than not, but not always, and effective only as starting point, not finish line) heritage and proactive retroactive futurism.

America's Classical Music!!!!!!

Otherwise, I keep meaning to get around to Flying Lotus and that Butterfly thing, the bits I've heard have been fun, but, really (and seriously/honestly) that's thing's gonna happen with me or without me, so...no rush.

[AllenLowe]

Karl - the motivation question was directed elsewhere, not at you, as there were some suggestions that those of us who were rejecting Washington were doing so because he was 'popular.' I am indeed suspicious of jazz that sells well, but time has told us that it's not always bad music that sells.

As for the crisis of spirit, well, I see a lot of uninspired music being played by extremely talented players, and I agree with you on the use of distortion by a lot of jazzers. I have stopped going very public on this as it just tends to piss people off, but I do find a dearth of music that seems to exist out of necessity, that has the edge I like. And to me the 'free' side of the music is in crisis; once again there does not seem to be a lot of agreement on this. Malaby, a brilliant improviser, is a perfect example; I have seen him play incredibly well and also seem completely bored. I think, as well, that this is happening because there is too much music being made for too-little money. Musicians are starting to just show up.
'

[Steve Reynolds]

Malaby is almost notoriously inconsistent in my experience.

For me, it's not because he's bored. He never settles for the easy audience thrill which he could pull off every time and every set. He may struggle for motivation - maybe we a do. But I do know he's still searching. For me the last year of his performances that I've seen have been overall the strongest playing of his I've seen/heard.

[AllenLowe]

I may be misreading his inconsistency; it is interesting that certain improvisers cannot phone it in and have to be "on" in order to have it together; while others can always create a certain level of execution and ideas.

Rollins and Konitz are two players who come to mind here as well.

[Steve Reynolds]

There was one night that Malaby seemed not to be able to get it together until late in the second set (in a two tenor Mario Pavone band maybe 5-6 years ago), and then he uncorked an improvisation that made me a lifetime follower. I think the other tenor guy inspired him or something within the band/music finally inspired him. Who knows?

[Leeway]

It seems to me we are all inclined to work through the notion of Romantic "inspiration," the divine Aeolian harp acted upon by the winds of inspiration, when in this postmodern age we really need to start understanding art, musical or otherwise, as "made objects," culled from the cultural effluvia of previous generations.

The discussion of Malaby follows this Romantic template, whereas the discussion of Halvorson does not, although the latter seems to leave us baffled as she harnesses a stream of cultural referents in her music--no waiting for the divine winds to blow. I consider Halvorson perhaps the epitome of the post-modern culturist in music. People like K. Washington are a throwback, an ersatz attempt to traverse old ground in hopes of something new. Commercially, sure; artistically, a waste of time.

[Steve Reynolds]

Along with Mat Maneri, I find as pure improvisors that Malaby & Halvorsen are the most vibrant in the moment, 'sound of surprise' musicians I see and hear live on a fairly regular basis.

For example, as I said above, I'm going to see Thumbscrew on 6/20. I've not yet heard the trio on record or live. I am pretty sure I have no idea what their mode of operation is or what the compositional approach will be.

As far as her use of distortion and the pedals et al, I find it organic, refreshing and simply part of her 'voice'. None of it is done to impress, it is all fine in the spirit of the music. Mat's use of his pedal/volume is somewhat similar with his viola and the effect is somewhat similar. I find the one historical musician that they both sometime recall when I'm experiencing them live is Jimi Hendrix.

See - in a perfect world, more could feel and hear that. Yes - they can both be that good.

Malaby for whatever reason only makes me think of him. He doesn't sound like anyone else on tenor and lately on soprano, he's come into a whole new level of brilliance. His antecedents and influences to me come more from other musics than from other saxophonists. Sure - he is a high energy tenor man first and foremost and has absorbed the full history and breadth of the music and of the horn - maybe deeper and wider than any of his contemporaries. I mean what other guy plays ripping changes and free bop shit along with very abstract excursions into places beyond? Without it being pastiche.

Edited June 7, 2015 by Steve Reynolds

[.:.impossible]

I think we should cut Halvorson some slack here guys.

[JSngry]

There's no such thing as slack in territory wars.

[Steve Reynolds]

Btw - Halvorsen as understated with ICP in May but she was thoroughly brilliant. Even a friend who is not a Mary fan admitted to her wonderful playing with the great ensemble.

Fwiw Marcus Rojas might have been even better - but I remind myself it isn't a contest.

Maybe ICP deserves to be mentioned here as they are mostly older, mostly been playing together a long time, mostly playing lots of the same music for a very long time - and yet they are filled with spirit, excitement, surprises and are thoroughly engaging and exciting improvisors. My only issue is that I only was able to see one of the three nights they played here in Brooklyn in May.

[Leeway]

I think we should cut Halvorson some slack here guys.

In case I've been misunderstood (quite possible), I'm a great admirer of Halvorson, and my comments were intended to be complimentary. I feel she's extending Braxton's post-mod program, and is very much an artist of her time. My point was that we need to adopt new evaluative paradigms in order to better appreciate what she is doing. The old Romantic egoist approach isn't cutting it anymore.

[Steve Reynolds]

I think we should cut Halvorson some slack here guys.

In case I've been misunderstood (quite possible), I'm a great admirer of Halvorson, and my comments were intended to be complimentary. I feel she's extending Braxton's post-mod program, and is very much an artist of her time. My point was that we need to adopt new evaluative paradigms in order to better appreciate what she is doing. The old Romantic egoist approach isn't cutting it anymore.

As in the old "reaching for the great solo that ends with a big flourish to gain the big cheer" has been a thing of the past for quite some time.

Very rare if you've ever seen the best of the best current improvisors where there is a set up for an applause. Very rare that Malaby ever gets applause during a set. All the real great stuff always happens in the moment within the context of the music.

[ep1str0phy]

Malaby for whatever reason only makes me think of him. He doesn't sound like anyone else on tenor and lately on soprano, he's come into a whole new level of brilliance. His antecedents and influences to me come more from other musics than from other saxophonists. Sure - he is a high energy tenor man first and foremost and has absorbed the full history and breadth of the music and of the horn - maybe deeper and wider than any of his contemporaries. I mean what other guy plays ripping changes and free bop shit along with very abstract excursions into places beyond? Without it being pastiche.

In the interest of lifting people up rather than putting folks down, two names: Phillip Greenlief and Matt Nelson. PG is a West Coast guy, and he's simultaneously an tremendously deft free improviser (in the "classic" sense) and a very well equipped straightahead player. His understanding of the organic relationship between seemingly contrary improvising disciplines makes him a very interesting improviser regardless of the context. PG's band The Lost Trio actually essayed maybe the best Monk tribute I've ever heard (in that it both thoughtfully considers the compositions and sounds truly spontaneous), entitled Monkwork.

Matt is from a newer wave of guys whose music I have a lot of affection for. Allen brought up the notion of post-postmodern music (sorry, I feel like I'm paraphrasing an entire hypothesis from weak memory), and I hear this in Matt's music (and that of his sometime associates Michael Coleman, Sam Ospovat, etc.)--it draws freely but unironically from a tremendous swath of history, and the end result is both deeply personal, lyrical as often as abstract.

I think that Leeway's comments are dead-on in terms of finding new evaluative paradigms for creative music of all sorts. I may have more respect for Halvorson's music than I do excitement (again, my hang up and not hers), but there are "things" in her playing that are so valuable as points of critical and artistic reference--being non-egoistic, referentially "open," and so-on. The fact that this music is being received and understood is a testament to the fact that we're beginning to build a dialogue about things both unheard and as yet not known.

Re: what Jim said--I'm of no mind that jazz needs saving in any institutional sense, and I think the mass critical preoccupation with not only survival but also evaluating precisely what makes creative music important is a big part of this. To reiterate (and more bluntly this time), I feel like modern jazz/improv "as it is" is in large part an exercise in staking louder claims on smaller and smaller parcels of land, and a lot of the most creative people have just moved out and beyond this dialogue into more fertile territories. I don't think that Washington will save jazz, but, again, Jazz will never die, and I'm just excited to see the spirit of the music live on in something different.

I also have to say that everything that gets said on this board gives me more than enough to chew on out in the "real world" (where words are words and not binary code)--so thanks for that. I feel like these kinds of discussion have been crucial toward a personal turn in the past year or so, when I stopped wondering "what happens now" and started gearing up for "what happens next."

[danasgoodstuff]

This thread is the most (presumably) unintentionally hilarious thing I've read in a long time. Not that you don't have points, or whatever, but still... Thanks.

[ep1str0phy]

But tell us how you really feel

[Guy Berger]

Commercially, sure; artistically, a waste of time.

Always a fancy way of saying "I personally don't like his music."