Kamasi Washington - The Epic

I've listened to a half dozen or so of Wynton's albums, including that 7CD Live at the Village Vanguard box from the mid '90s. The only ones that really made a strong impression on me were some from the mid '80s like Black Codes from the Underground and J Mood. He's a really talented player, but one of the most faceless composers I've ever come across - I don't think he's got a single memorable tune.

his live version of 'knozz moe king' on the village vanguard set is pretty undeniable imo

but yeah never was about his compositions per se, but as a soloist i think he transcended his early miles influences pretty readily

black codes from the underground is a great record

hey i feel like wynton put out something like this ("the epic") maybe 15 years ago? a sprawling 3 disc set, lots of vocals, some orchestration, lots of political overtones

"Blood on the Fields"

Oh come on how many people bought/listened to this thing NCAA of the cover????

― brimstead, Monday, October 5, 2015 5:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol NCAA equals because

― brimstead, Monday, October 5, 2015 5:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is an especially hilarious accusation because album cover art is like at least 1/3 of the appeal of Blue Note

wynton marsalis has multiple albums better than this kamasi album i haven't listened to, probably

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, October 6, 2015 12:24 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cosmic slop when is our "Greatest Jazz Albums D-40 Hasn't Bothered to Listen To" poll?

feel like this thread is now the They Live sunglasses fight scene except m@tt et al is Rowdy Roddy, D-40 is Keith David, and the sunglasses are a spiritual hat

xxxp to d40 yes! blood on the fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_on_the_Fields

"Blood on the Fields is a three-and-a-half-hour jazz oratorio, by Wynton Marsalis. It was commissioned by Lincoln Center and concerns a couple moving from slavery to freedom."

wynton marsalis has multiple albums better than this kamasi album i haven't listened to, probably

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, October 6, 2015 10:24 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hard not to admire the bold pivot from "what, i'm just talking about the album's reception and what's been written about it!" to "i am indeed evaluating the music on this album that I will never listen to."

so its ok to be totally dismissive of wynton marsalis but not kamasi washington. got it

i don't remember dismissing wynton marsalis but whatever

fwiw I'm not familiar sufficiently familiar with Marsalis's work so I can't even guess how it compares to Washington's.

maybe you should listen to it!!

poll of wynton marsalis albums intheblanks hasn't heard

wynton's hat game is just a little off
http://www.jazzhouse.org/jpg/franckling/5Wynton.jpg

lol not being sufficiently familiar with someone's work = dismissing it, ok dude

deej you realize you are actually the one doing what you are accusing intheblanks of doing or have you gone full hongro?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOa5-ZN2tWg

i love the transition from wynton's furious double time solo to eric reed's cool, relaxed one

deej you realize you are actually the one doing what you are accusing intheblanks of doing or have you gone full hongro?

― Comme Si, Kamasi (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 6, 2015 1:51 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thats the point

i'm listening to blood on the fields by wynton right now, i guess i don't see many points of comparison to kamasi. reminds me of the more complex later ellington stuff if anything
pretty good deej you should listen to this!

McCraven album is amazing

yeah blood on the fields is more of a concert piece kind of thing -- jazz-classical. actually a point of comparison for kamasi might be that christian mcbride live at tonic thing from a little while back, at least in terms of sprawl.

cosmic slop when is our "Greatest Jazz Albums D-40 Hasn't Bothered to Listen To" poll?

― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

Maybe that was the poll from a few years ago?

I like Black Codes From the Underground and Wynton forms an indelible piece of my childhood because of his PBS special introducing children to jazz and I've never gotten that into spiritual hat jazz and I still want to listen to this because of the awesome cover art.

deej is a real idiot in this thread

I remember that show...was it Marsalis On Music? I thought parts of it were incredibly informative and effective for the audience he was aiming at. But one bit that stood out for me was when he had his wind players play a tone cluster. Wynton winced (wynced?) and waved them off in mock pain going, "No! No! Arg! Terrible! Stop! That's enough!"

I thought, yep, DISSONANCE = BAD. THANKS, WYNTON, NOW WE KNOW. HEY GANG, LET'S WRITE OFF WHOLE MAJOR MOVEMENTS IN THE MUSIC! HOORAY!

That said, he's an unbelievably skilled and consistent player but, like Quincy Jones said, "no trumpeter in America wants to play like Wynton in his style. Every great trumpeter - Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Miles - borrows from someone before him and adds his own thing. But nobody wants to play like Wynton."

Like, honestly, whether this dude is ONE GOOD JAZZ is really besides the point.

Until, like, 2013, fusion jazz was regarded as square, wack, lame beardo shit, and Kamasi and Thundercat made it SUPER COOL AND ACCESSIBLE enough to HELP CHANGE THE SOUND of Flying Lotus (who, like him or not, is making some of the most important and influential electronic music today) and Kendrick Lamar (who, like him or not, is making some of the most important and influential hip-hop music today). Kamasi and his crew, through sheer force of their abilities, have literally changed the sound of popular music in a small but perceptible way. The fact that this jazz record has the look and feel of contemporary records like, say, D'Angelo or Gonjasufi or the Roots or Shabazz Palaces or whatever only helps.

otm

That said, he's an unbelievably skilled and consistent player but, like Quincy Jones said, "no trumpeter in America wants to play like Wynton in his style. Every great trumpeter - Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Miles - borrows from someone before him and adds his own thing. But nobody wants to play like Wynton."

I never really gave it much thought, but yeah, he really is kind of an aesthetic dead end.

square, wack, lame beardo shit

wow at that quincy quote

Miles went in on Wynton too iirc

o yeah definitely but that's way more expected. i guess i should check out black codes again cuz this is at least the second time i've seen it repped for on ilx, the last marsalis album i listened to was blood on the fields. always preferred branford anyway tbh.

Blood on the fields was never my thing but it's alright

fwiw I greatly dig what the musicians offer Kendrick Lamar, tpab is one of my favorite albums of the year

I wanted to play like wynton lol but more in the sense of his technical command and fluency than in his production of good ideas. That's probably pretty common

This 2012 compilation gathers up some recent Wynton stuff; I remember thinking it was pretty decent at the time.

i remember liking citi movement alot also, i might listen to that sometime this weekend. i usually concur w/ any criticism or insult thrown the guy's way but he played a huge role in me checking out duke ellington in high school.

i saw wayne shorter at lincoln center a few months ago, where his songs were rearranged for a bigger band which wynton led. it was weird and tasteful. still pretty cool

"Until, like, 2013, fusion jazz was regarded as square, wack, lame beardo shit, and Kamasi and Thundercat made it SUPER COOL AND ACCESSIBLE enough to HELP CHANGE THE SOUND of Flying Lotus (who, like him or not, is making some of the most important and influential electronic music today) and Kendrick Lamar (who, like him or not, is making some of the most important and influential hip-hop music today)"

you are saying here that those guys rendered fusion fashionable in changing what those guys had done. how did they do that? in what way specifically? I do not hear any such thing in the works of Flying Lotus or Kendrick.

I think of spiritual hat jazz and proggy fusion dork jazz as different lineages, although obv there was overlap. Like the Return to Forever records I grew up on are a very different thing (and much less hipster-cool) from the free-er/spacier stuff I associate with spiritual hats.

Until, like, 2013, fusion jazz was regarded as square, wack, lame beardo shit

uh

imo the kind of fusion integrated into the flying lotus and kendrick lamar records has always been super cool

also doesn't wack fusion constitute the sample source of 100000000000000000000 rap songs

Fucking the Numa Numa song was used in a rap song, that doesn't make it cool

Numa Numa was fusion jazz? I knew.

well right, bob james isn't very cool yet either and is v distinct from the fusion that is embedded in flylo and kendrick records

or actually maybe i'm just getting really confused by the use of "cool" in this conversation

Like the Return to Forever records I grew up on are a very different thing (and much less hipster-cool) from the free-er/spacier stuff I associate with spiritual hats.

Yeah, I think of RTF, Mahavishnu, even Billy Cobham's Spectrum as instrumental prog-rock more than jazz.

Kamasi isn't really free jazz at all though! He gets a little out in parts but I think people are projecting a lot of this free jazz stuff based on the album cover... Ppl talking like he's Albert Ayler, he's way more funk than that