Kamasi Washington
@ the Love Supreme Jazz Festival
3 July 2016

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Biography

At the age of 13, Kamasi Washington started a lifelong quest discovering the many wonders of music. One night, his father left his soprano saxophone lying on the piano. Washington, filled with curiosity for all the beauty he heard from the instrument, picked up his father’s horn. Even though he didn’t know anything about the saxophone - in fact, never even touched one - he played Wayne Shorter’s composition “Sleeping Dancer Sleep On,” his favourite song at the time.

At the prestigious Hamilton High School Music Academy, within two years, Washington earned the lead tenor saxophone chair in the top jazz ensemble. At the same time, Washington joined the Multi School Jazz Band (MSJB) where he reunited with several childhood friends who were pursuing their passion for music. During his senior year of high school, Washington formed his first band, “The Young Jazz Giants,” with childhood friends including Ronald Bruner, Stephen Bruner and Cameron Graves. After high school, Washington received a full scholarship to study ethnomusicology at UCLA, where he explored many of the non-western musical cultures around the world. During the summer after his freshman year, Washington recorded his first album with “The Young Jazz Giants” to spread new sounds of jazz all around the country. In his second year at UCLA, Washington went on his first national tour with the west coast hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg. Later that year, Washington joined the orchestra of one of his biggest heroes, Gerald Wilson, and later went on his first international tour with R&B legend Raphael Saadiq.

Over the years, Kamasi Washington has performed and recorded with many of his musical heroes from various genres, including Gerald Wilson, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Burrell, George Duke, Lauryn Hill, Jeffrey Osborne, Mos Def, Quincy Jones, Stanley Clark, Harvey Mason and Chaka Khan. Washington’s own band “The Next Step” is a modern spin on a big band, which includes two drummers, two upright bass players, keyboard players, three horns players, a pianist, and a vocalist. In addition, Washington is part of a west coast musical collective called the “West Coast Get Down.”