Kamasi Washington - The Epic

a few thoughts:

1) i love all kinds of jazz (though admittedly pretty behind on contemporary (~past 30 years) jazz w/ a few exceptions and i agree with discussions itt and other threads that the centrality of ayler-pharoah-sun-ra-spiritual-free jazz in the "record collector" jazz canon is a little weird. i think d-40 is otm here even if i think he should listen to the album.

2) checking out or not checking out an album based on its cover art is a perfectly valid practice imo. i've been turned on to a ton of new music from the "noteworthy album covers" thread.

3) i am not sure what brimstead means by saying the cover art denotes a "hipster album" or "space rock"?? afro-futurism is a pretty established aesthetic in black music and anyone w/ a passing familiarity with idk black of the past 60 years would probably have no trouble seeing this album art as fitting pretty cozily in an afro-futurist tradition. maybe not a lot of contemporary jazz artists are doing much w/ afro-futurism but it is alive and well elsewhere that it does not necessarily code as retro to me to see an afro-futurist album cover in 2015. lol dude "space rock"??? i'm giving brimstead the benefit of the doubt here bc i think he is a good poster but "hipster as pejorative" has been discussed a lot obv and dismissing something as "hipster" often has the subtext that "hipster=white" and needs a little more unpacking when you are calling a creative work by person of color "hipster art," it is a fucked up imo and a little dangerous without more explaining what you are talking about. it is fine to talk about why white folks graduate toward some black artists but not others but just saying oh this codes as hipster is tricky imo.

2) i did play this whole thing a few weeks for a close friend of mine who is a professional jazz musician. we were hanging out cooking for a few hours so it was perfect to play it straight through for him, he was already a little familiar with it. he's around 50, been doing jazz gigs for a long time, teaches jazz at a university and is well-established in the local music scene where he lives. we've always talked about jazz a lot and i've always dug talking to him about it bc i'm not a musician and he is and it is always cool for me to break out of my "music listener" bubble and talk to people who make music. he's pretty opened minded about jazz, he's not a crouch-marsalis conservative, he loves even the farthest-out electric miles but is skeptical about ayler, pharaoh, etc but loves andrew hill and ornette. he dug the kamasi album but basically felt what upper mississippi shakedown said upthread -- "this guy's story isn't written yet" -- he felt like kamasi is fairly young and kind of an ambitious rookie and that is cool but that he has a long way to go towards maturity. he then played me some ambrose akinmusire and got very very excited about telling me what ambrose was doing. this is really just a "token musician's take" that i am offering here but he is a very close friend of mine and is godfather to one of my boys and i love his music so i valued his opinion a lot.

3) speaking of akinmusire, who also played on the kendrick album, it is a little interesting that kamasi is the jazz player who is getting all the attention while i've heard very little about ambrose in the aftermath of butterfly. (maybe bc ambrose album came out last year, before butterfly, and kamasi's album came out this year? idk whatever).

Ambrose got a lot of very favorable press when his first Blue Note album came out in 2011, but his second album for them, in 2014, was kind of a disappointment (I thought) and wasn't really as well received.

Also, Ambrose's music is generally a little more abstruse, more likely to appeal to musicians than average listeners. I'm not at all surprised that your friend would be into him.

there's a part of me that nags 'you're gonna find this pretty embarrassing in a few years'. i LOVED wynton marsalis' blue interlude when i was a kid so i'm speaking from experience there.

― balls, Sunday, October 4, 2015 11:30 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also i've let this sentiment guide some of my listening in the past (i.e. am i going to be embarrassed by this in the future?") and i think i've learned two things:

1) it does not matter in the slightest if in a few years i am embarrassed by something i'm enjoying right now
2) i am not even a very good predictor of what i will be embarrassed about in the future

macy gray syndrome

marcos otm

macy gray doesn't seem particularly embarassing really

Just the big hit, really.

whiney has mentioned this in other threads, but there is a very real trend among primarily white critics of raving over a black artist who is (in some way) an alternative to the mainstream, only to totally ignore that artist's later output and act embarrassed that anyone listened to it. Primary examples include Tracy Chapman, Terrence Trent D'Arby, Arrested Development, honestly any number of "alternative" rappers.

found the post here, hard not to agree with it.

Tracy Chapman, Terrence Trent D'Arby, Arrested Development, honestly any number of "alternative" rappers.

not saying this is inaccurate but maybe some examples from within the last 25 years would bolster yr case

feel like this even sort of happened to public enemy to an extent.

xp

Other artists mentioned in the thread I just linked: Tricky, Wyclef, late '90s backpacker stuff, Def Jux, grime. I'd probably include late De La Soul in there too.

It's not always exactly how everything works, but it was brought to mind by the sentiment that we may all find listening to Kamasi Washington embarrassing in a few years.

macy gray syndrome

― Cosmic Slop, Tuesday, October 6, 2015 12:21 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

poptimist syndrome

- Some Guy Posting From Outer Space, October 7, 2031 (16 years from now) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ilx syndrome aka Big N Rich

otm

can't front I like the new Janet though

feel like this even sort of happened to public enemy to an extent.

― nomar, Tuesday, October 6, 2015 11:58 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know I think Public Enemy's musical quality, critical acclaim and popular appeal declined at about the same rate (if anything I think they get a break from some critics like I actually read some decent stuff on the new one which is hideous)

feel like T-Trent D'arby has a lot of cult defenders of his later stuff but that might be an ILX thing?

I agree on those points abt PE but I think there's some of that syndrome whiney described as well.

marcos truly otm upthread.

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

to be clear I don't have a problem with people making value judgments based on record covers (I do it all the time!) I just rankled at the notion/projection/inference that people were buying the album because they were shallow people in search of spiritual hats\

xp

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

insightful

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.