Kamasi Washington open to exploring fresh ideas

Kamasi Washington has been the recipient of some heavy accolades in recent years — “the future of jazz” and “the jazz voice of Black Lives Matter” among them. The saxophonist with the imposing frame, towering Afro and flowing African tunics was tutored by jazz masters in and around Los Angeles for decades, including his father, saxophonist Rickey Washington.

Yet despite his increasing stature, Washington remains a soft-spoken student as much as a leader, and his openness to new ideas and fresh inspiration has made him a go-to collaborator for artists ranging from Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock to Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar. In skipping across musical boundaries, he has brought a new energy to jazz and how it is perceived in the world. A current tour has him playing venues more commonly associated with rock bands, such as the Riviera in Chicago.

“It feels like people are becoming more open,” Washington says. “With information so accessible on the internet, it’s easy to get music and base opinions about whether you like something after listening to it. I found that jazz, when you open yourself up to it, has a very high success rate.”

Washington grew up in a household swimming in jazz recordings and his father’s musical friends. “I took my dad’s saxophone when I was 11,” he says. “As a musician, your instrument is almost predetermined. I had played drums, piano, clarinet, but when I heard Wayne Shorter play the saxophone, I knew that sound is what I wanted. My dad couldn’t have taken the saxophone back — he could see it in my eyes.”

Instead, his father threw his son into the deep end of the musical pool to focus his dedication.

“My dad’s reaction to it was to take me to my uncle and start playing at church,” the saxophonist says. “He said, ‘I’m taking you to the place where your connection to your instrument will be deeper than just mental.’ My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn’t know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn’t fail.”

The improvisational, go-with-the-flow setting opened up young Kamasi to the notion that music was more than notes on a page. He studied music as a teenager in high school and then at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he played alongside masters such as Gerald Wilson and Kenny Burrell. Another key teacher was Snoop Dogg, with whom Washington toured nationally for the first time two decades ago.

It helps explain how Washington has melded his style with such a diverse group of collaborators. As he was finishing his 2015 three-disc breakthrough album, “The Epic,” after a series of self-released recordings, he was making major contributions to projects by fellow jazz innovator Thundercat, hip-hop producer Flying Lotus and Lamar, for whom he played saxophone and arranged strings on the landmark “To Pimp a Butterfly” album.

His latest EP, “Harmony of Difference” (Young Turks), consists of six tracks that explore the idea of musical counterpoint as a metaphor for social harmony.

“Music doesn’t come out of you, it comes through you,” he says. “You are almost like a messenger. My experience, my life gets woven into the music. I grew up with a sense of music being a very spiritual experience while playing in church and with parents who were socially aware, always teaching me to look beyond the obvious in understanding how the world works. Through that came a realization that we all play our part in the world being the way it is. You can build it up or tear it down. I try to use my music, my ability, to help build the world up.”