Kamasi Washington on composing for Lazarus anime, Fearless Movement, and his Australian tour
Is there anybody who's done more to make jazz hip again in the past decade than Kamasi Washington?
A virtuoso saxophonist, composer and band leader, the Grammy-nominated musician splices jazz with elements of hip-hop, soul and funk. His sprawling excursions resonate with modern audiences and jazz purists alike. It certainly helps he counts Snoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill and Brainfeeder record label boss Flying Lotus among his many collaborators.
He also got a shout-out on Kendrick Lamar's GNX album (on recent US #1 hit 'squabble up'), after first linking up for the rapper's To Pimp A Butterfly — one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 2010s.
Since the crossover success of his 2015 triple album The Epic, Washington has continued expanding his repertoire — from scoring the 2020 Michelle Obama documentary, Becoming, to an electrifying live show that gets prime position on festival bills worldwide.
That includes Australia. Ever since his debut on our shores (as part of Bluesfest 2016), Washington has regularly toured here, playing bigger shows on each visit.
This month, he plays Vivid Sydney and headlines concerts in Melbourne and Brisbane. Backing him will be his ensemble of crack instrumentalists, some whom he's played with since his days as a 19-year-old UCLA music student.
"I'm bringing an eight-piece band: three horns, a vocalist, keys, bass, drums," he tells Andrew Ford on The Music Show. But there are a few added twists, including vocalist Patrice Quinn and LA hip hop producer DJ Battlecat.
"He's going to do some work on the turntables, percussion, and some talk box. So, it's a pretty interesting band."
Rickey Washington, Kamasi's father, will also be breaking out the passport. Washington Sr has regularly played flute and soprano saxophone with his son since the mid-2000s, when Kamasi was in The Young Jazz Giants — a UCLA-bred group that featured a who's who of California's current jazz scene.
Namely, saxophonist-rapper-producer Terrace Martin, drummer Ronald Bruner and his younger brother, Stephen Bruner, better known as bass virtuoso Thundercat (all of whom also featured on To Pimp A Butterfly).
Joined by his father and live band, Washington's current Australian shows are in support of his 2024 album, Fearless Movement, which adds a new name to the muso's star-studded CV: his daughter, Asha.
"She's four, almost five [years old] now," Washington remarks. But she was "around two" when her tinkling on the keys inspired the melody for the track 'Asha The First', earning the toddler a co-writing credit.
"She's pretty musical. She would get up every morning and just play the piano. She was pretty random," Washington explains. "Then one day it was like she discovered she could control the piano. She played this little melody and just kept playing it over and over and over.
"And so, I recorded it and then added some harmony and some words, then we made it into a song. It's beautiful."
Fatherhood often changes people and, for Washington, parenting Asha became "like a restart of my journey in music, because I'm playing her all my favourite albums. Going back and introducing her to music in a way that reintroduces it to myself as well".
"Right now, she's into James Brown," he notes.
Understandably, jazz was one of her formative favourites. "It was actually Eric Doplhy's Out To Lunch! — that album [and] song. I was like, 'What kind of baby do I have!?'
Washington has described Fearless Movement as a "dance album", a tribute to the art of movement where he reconnects with the roots of rhythm.
"I've always been drawn to rhythm [but] definitely, for this record, it felt like it was even more there than normal."
The result? Washington's penchant for sprawling, cosmic soundscapes gets hot-wired by funked-up rhythms, fiery rapping and compelling collaborations.
Parliament-Funkadelic's George Clinton and Inglewood rapper D Smoke guest on the strutting 'Get Lit', and rapper-turned-flute wizard André 3000 appears on the fittingly titled 'Dream State'.
Meanwhile, twin brothers and MCs Taj and Ras Austin liven up 'Asha The First', where Washington instructed his band to play as if they were supporting a horn solo.
"Normally when we hear rap, it's always over a loop. So, instead … I wanted it to be over music that was moving, growing and expanding.
"Ras and Taj Austin — they're so musical that I knew they would really get it. And they nailed it. The meter's shifting, the chords, the feel — there's so much going on. It was fun to hear."
Fearless Movement also features an earnest re-imagining of 'Computer Love' by 80s electro-funksters Zapp (which is where DJ Battlecat's aforementioned talk box comes in), while 'Prologue' interpolates Argentinian tango composer Astor Piazzolla.
"I've been a fan for a long time. I always refer to him as the meanest of Argentina," Washington laughs. "I just love his work. I love his melodies, they're so powerful."
"That melody has always been one of my favourite melodies ever since I heard it, years and years ago."
Washington and pianist Cameron Graves were "messing around" with Piazzolla's 'Prologue (Tango Apasionado)' when fellow band mate Brandon Coleman walked in, "listening to some drum-and-bass music. And we all were like 'Oh, let's do it like that!"
Earlier this year, Washington released a swift follow-up to Fearless Movement: an album that reaches audiences in the wildly popular medium of Japanese animation, courtesy of a bucket-list collaboration with anime master Shinichirō Watanabe.
Washington grew up a teenage anime fan in the 90s, seeking out DVD copies of legendary titles like Dragon Ball Z, Ghost In The Shell, and Cowboy Bebop.
Watanabe-san's most famous and influential work, Cowboy Bebop, used a fusion of big band jazz, blues and beyond to underscore action, melancholy and dystopian sci-fi themes. Washington has said it deeply informed him as an artist.
Music continued to play an integral role in Watanabe-san's anime. Samurai Champloo blended hip-hop with traditional Japanese music, while Carole & Tuesday concerned a female duo trying to make it in the music industry… on a colonised Mars dominated by AI-produced pop.
Lazarus, Watanabe-san's much-anticipated new series, saw the director tapping Washington, as well as electronic producers Bonobo and Floating Points to each compose the show's soundtrack.
Once again, Lazarus employs evocative music to amplify Watanabe-san's unique sci-fi setting and storytelling, concerning a rogue team of misfits tasked with saving humanity from a ubiquitous, cure-all drug that's revealed to be a deadly toxin.
Washington, however, knew none of this when he was initially brought on board the project. "It wasn't finished," he notes.
"[Watanabe] didn't really have me write the music to picture. He had me write it to prompts. Like, he gave me an idea… a story or plot line, and he asked me to write something that felt like that emotion, which is a very different way for me than I've worked on films in the past."
"For example: 'There's a group of people, they're searching for this guy, but keep running into road blocks.' It was like creating music from written word rather than from a visual."
Instructed to create an original album, rather than a soundtrack, Washington gave Watanabe-san the individual, isolated audio elements of each recording and "he took the music and made it fit".
"There's some editing that he did — it's pretty seamless. I think it was a two-way street, he was adjusting the music and adjusting the picture at the same time."
For instance, Washington intended the track 'Lazarus', with its wild flurries of brass and grand choir, to be the show's theme song. Instead, Watanabe-san used the piece for a chase sequence and ultimately selected an edit of the thrilling 'Vortex' to become the main theme.
Washington only learned of the decision after the show's completion.
Kamasi Washington plays the following dates on his Fearless Movement Australian tour, with support from Micah Heathwood. Tickets available now.
Sunday, June 8 — Carriageworks: Gadigal Land, SydneyWednesday, June 11 — Palais Theatre: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Land, Melbourne
Thursday, June 12 — QPAC Concert Hall: Turrbal Jagera Land, Brisbane
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