Kamasi Washington

Born in 1981 in Los Angeles, Kamasi Washington trained in the Californian jazz scene before attending the ethnomusicology department at UCLA, where he played with musicians such as Kenny Burrell and Gerald Wilson. A tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger, Kamasi Washington develops a wide-ranging jazz that blends modal heritage, spiritual jazz, soul, funk and orchestral openings, with writing designed as much for the collective as for improvisation. A founding member of the West Coast Get Down collective, he first appeared on several projects within the Los Angeles scene and later contributed to recordings by Gerald Wilson, Thundercat, Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar, notably on To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015. That same year he released The Epic, a triple album that brought him wider recognition, followed by Harmony of Difference in 2017 and Heaven and Earth in 2018. Alongside his personal projects, Kamasi Washington pursues a transversal practice between jazz, hip-hop and film music, as on Becoming in 2020, and co-founded Dinner Party with Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper and 9th Wonder. In 2024 he returned with Fearless Movement, continuing a trajectory that links Los Angeles jazz tradition with more contemporary forms.