Kamasi Washington is a contemporary jazz composer and saxophonist from Los Angeles, California. In 2015, Kamasi released the album The Epic which featured vast powerful compositions, with instrumentation from legends such as Thundercat on bass and Leon Mobley on percussion. The album was met with generally good critical reception. Many veterans of the genre praised the album too, “It seems to intentionally overwhelm, in an immersive way; it's music to be swept up by and revisited after the wave subsides,” commented Patrick Jarenwattananon of NPR Music. Currently, the album is considered to be one of the best jazz albums of all time. This is my opinion on the album.

This album is my favorite jazz album of all time, and I highly recommend it for someone who is just starting to get into the jazz genre. The record itself is three hours long, where many of the tracks reach ten minutes or more in length. Many of the songs derive inspiration from genres like blues, rock, and even funk. The compositions are vast and impactful with Washington’s saxophone humming throughout each song. This album seems to secure one goal, to overwhelm the listener with as much instrumentation as possible, and each song features two drummers, two bassists, two pianists, and so on. If this truly is the goal of The Epic than the goal is reached in full, demonstrated with just how vast and impactful most of the tracks are, a sound juxtaposed to many of the other contemporary jazz records in recent memory.

Unlike previous albums by Kamasi Washington “The Epic” diverts a less of a focus on the saxophone and focuses more on the way the many other instruments mingle and sound when playing all at once, a change which I appreciate seeing as the sheer number of instruments playing at once suggest the amount of practice it must have taken to play songs that span as long as these in one take. Commitment to music on that level is commendable regardless of whether you enjoy the music or not. Despite the amount of praise I can lend to this album, its biggest flaw is its length, I briefly mentioned just how long the album is, but I did not bring up the fact that this factor occasionally works in the album's detriment. If you have a short attention span, then this album is not for you, although I repeatedly say music should never be something you have to stop everything and sit down to enjoy. I'm sure anyone would get bored with an album as long as this after a little while.

Overall, this is my favorite jazz album of all time. I highly recommend it for those who are unfamiliar with the genre, and although I thoroughly enjoy the instrumentation, the album is a bit of an undertaking due to its length. If you would like to try getting into jazz but this album just doesn't do it for you, I recommend “Monk's Dream” by Thelonious Monk. I hope you check out this album and perhaps more of Kamasi Washington’s work.