Kamasi Washington – Fearless Movement (2024) [FLAC 24bit/48kHz]

Kamasi Washington – Fearless Movement (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:26:22 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Fusion, Spiritual Jazz, Soul Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Young

Kamasi Washington releases his new album, Fearless Movement, via Young. Washington calls Fearless Movement his dance album. “It’s not literal,” Washington says. “Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music—expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing.” Dance as an embodied form of expression signals a shift in focus for Washington. Where previous albums dealt with cosmic ideas and existential concepts, Fearless Movement focuses in on the everyday, an exploration of life on earth. This change in scope is due in large part to the birth of Washington’s first child a few years ago.

“Being a father means the horizon of your life all of a sudden shows up,” says Washington. “My mortality became more apparent to me, but also my immortality—realizing that my daughter is going to live on and see things that I’m never going to see. I had to become comfortable with this, and that affected the music that I was making.”

The album features Washington’s daughter—who wrote the melody to “Asha The First” during some of her first experimentations on the piano—as well as a host of collaborators new and old. André 3000 appears on flute, George Clinton lends his voice, as do BJ The Chicago Kid, Inglewood rapper D-Smoke and Taj and Ras Austin of Coast Contra, the twin sons of West Coast legend Ras Kass. Washington further enlisted lifelong friends and collaborators Thundercat, Terrace Martin, Patrice Quinn, Brandon Coleman, DJ Battlecat and more.AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek
Kamasi Washington’s maximalist musical statements use jazz as a touchstone before spinning off in multiple directions while remaining inseparable from the massive whole, as evidenced by 2015’s The Epic and 2018’s Heaven and Earth (both triple albums). Fearless Movement, his first long-player in six years, leaves out the choirs and orchestras but spans nearly 90 minutes over 12 tracks. He used his road band and a host of collaborators to execute this project. Washington began composing Fearless Movement during the pandemic while thinking about dance in a larger context, not only as art but as a prime engine for human movement. He also became a father; his daughter Asha (the blur on the cover) was born during the pandemic. The saxophonist became poignantly aware of his own mortality, understanding Asha would witness much after his passing.

“Lesanu” is the opening invocation, in which a cymbal wash finds Patrice Quinn and others chanting “Sing unto the Lord, a new song,” in Geʽez (the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible) and English. The band – trombonist Ryan Porter, trumpeter Dontae Winslow, organist/keyboardist Brandon Coleman, pianist Cameron Graves, bassist Miles Mosely, and drummers Tony Austin and Ronald Bruner, Jr. – along with an army of percussionists set a collision of post-bop and syncopated modalism guided by handclaps. “Asha the First” is based around a piano figure by his daughter. A funky wah-wah guitar, rolling drums, and chanted vocals by Quinn and brothers Taj and Ras Austin offer a chorale before Thundercat rains a harmolodic bass solo, answered by Washington’s blistering tenor solo above cascading jazz-funk. The Austins claim the track’s second half, rapping in tandem. Washington, a student of Herbie Hancock, threads complex jazz charts through massively funky R&B and bumping hip-hop. Elegiac brass introduces “Computer Love,” a spacey, soulful ballad sung by Quinn with Coleman on vocoder, DJ Battlecat’s turntables, and Woody Aplanalp’s warm guitar. On the clavinet-and-horn-fueled funk of “Get Lit,” P-Funk’s George Clinton and rapper D Smoke share vocals. “Dream State” begins in abstraction with organ, sequenced synth, and Washington’s alto suggesting the influence of Steve Reich’s contrapuntal minimalism. Andre 3000’s flute joins the dialog, as keys, rubbery bass, and breaking snares evoke something like Grover Washington, Jr.’s “Mister Magic.” “Together,” an Afrofuturist ballad, features vocal soulman BJ the Chicago Kid; it segues into the transcendent post-bop-R&B fusion of “The Garden Path,” featuring vocalist Dwight Trible. “Road to Self” is a 13-minute composition that moves fluidly across electronica, progressive jazz, spiritual post-bop, contemporary jazz, and funky fusion. Astor Piazzolla’s “Prologue” closes the album, employing Latin percussion under jazz-rock fusion and post-bop in a buoyant celebration of this band’s creative power. Track by track, Fearless Movement is relentless in exploring new sonic terrains and paying homage to musical forbears. It is Washington’s most cohesive statement. He doesn’t merely juxtapose instruments and sounds, he painstakingly combines them, bringing joy, intensity, political, social, and spiritual poignancy in a vision at once focused, restless, and playful.

Tracklist:

1-1. Kamasi Washington – Lesanu (09:22)
1-2. Kamasi Washington feat. Thundercat, Taj Austin & Ras Austin – Asha the First (feat. Thundercat, Taj Austin & Ras Austin) (07:46)
1-3. Kamasi Washington feat. Patrice Quinn, DJ Battlecat & Brandon Coleman – Computer Love (feat. Patrice Quinn, DJ Battlecat & Brandon Coleman) (09:26)
1-4. Kamasi Washington feat. Terrace Martin – The Visionary (feat. Terrace Martin) (01:10)
1-5. Kamasi Washington, George Clinton & D Smoke – Get Lit (03:26)
1-6. Kamasi Washington & André 3000 – Dream State (08:39)
1-7. Kamasi Washington & BJ The Chicago Kid – Together (05:34)
1-8. Kamasi Washington – The Garden Path (06:40)
1-9. Kamasi Washington – Road to Self (KO) (13:25)
1-10. Kamasi Washington – Interstellar Peace (The Last Stance) (05:04)
1-11. Kamasi Washington – Lines in the Sand (07:25)
1-12. Kamasi Washington – Prologue (08:19)

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