Kamasi Washington, jazz saxophone player out of Los Angeles, is, at only 39 years old, the leading musician of his generation, because his work is fearless, without boundaries and of the highest levels both artistically and politically.
What’s remarkable about Washington is his range: He has performed with Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Raphael Saadiq, adding and blending hip-hop with more traditional jazz.
The period of 1949-1964 was a kind of “golden age” of jazz — Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, Billie Holiday, Bud Powell and Ella Fitzgerald, among many others.
The thing is: Musicians like Snoop and Raphael, they love jazz!
The Guardian reviewed “Heaven and Earth,” and said that your appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp a Butterfly” established you as “the jazz voice of Black Lives Matter, in a grand tradition of jazz as black protest.”
