The word jazz doesn't mean much to Kamasi Washington. It's just a word. With his music he wants to express what words are not enough for. One cannot deny him a certain inclination towards gigantism, because Kamasi Washington wants nothing less than to change the world. But is that possible? For this he reaches for the stars and the earth's core at the same time.
Kamasi Washington is often compared to giants like John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders or McCoy Tyner. They all did not care about categories, but sought perfection in sound. For Washington, too, music is a combination of religion and philosophy that goes far beyond the earthly. Already his debut album "The Epic" (after three self-released works), which comprises over three hours of music on three CDs, was literally cosmic. On his new double CD "Heaven And Earth" he confronts the universe with the microcosm. "It is not about heaven and earth in the physical sense," he specifies, "but about our relationship to reality and our understanding of control. The world exists in our heads. One record is about how I experienced the world and the other tells how I imagine it. I have two personalities inside me. I really think a lot about the world and the people. But I can also let go, look out the window, drift into my own universe and find my absolute happiness there."
