After claiming his place in the spotlight by overwhelming force with The Epic, Kamasi Washington capitalizes on both his newfound fame and his journeyman work ethic to produce a follow-up that’s more intimate and just as daring at the same time.
Heaven And Earth is shorter than his powerful, three-hour debut, but it might be even more ambitious, splitting its 16 tracks into a two-part concept album: the first reflecting the world as it is, the second depicting Washington’s optimistic vision of the world as it should be.
As with The Epic, Heaven & Earth not only exemplifies Washington’s ability as a saxophonist and band leader, but also the band he has assembled. Every member gets their chance to shine. By drawing from a broader sonic palette, Washington brings a tenderness and intimacy to their big, bold music.
As a listening experience, Heaven and Earth contains the most transcendent moments of his output thus far, as well as some of the gnarliest.
This is the rare jazz record that feels equipped to venture outside the genre’s familiar borders and engage with the wider world.
There are choirs and strings, rumbling low-end and even some dissonant synthesizer; and there are songs of jubilee and liberation, born equally of church traditions and civil rights marches. Everything’s writ large; it is music that contains multitudes, and it’s teeming with joy and power.
His second LP, a conceptual double album exploring earth (reality) and heaven (idealisation), is perhaps unlikely to sway the old guard, but it pushes forward with a purposeful vitality that was at times missing from his debut album, The Epic.
Heaven and Earth is more a refinement of the ideas expressed on The Epic than an entirely new paradigm.
Heaven & Earth is ultimately yet another example of Washington’s incredible prowess behind the saxophone but also as a composer.
In a decade of major black American LP statements to match the conscious soul and jazz golden age of forty years ago, Washington is, along with D’Angelo, the artist most steeped in that era’s rhythmically liquid language, and Heaven and Earth allows little let-up in slippery grooves and soulful uplift.
It strives for boldness and muscular imposition, and aims to stir, excite and inspire. If Washington’s music opens the door for new audiences to explore a wider range of improvised music, it is undoubtedly a positive thing.
By adhering so much to its grand formula, Heaven and Earth comes off as even more cumbersome than The Epic.
Ok so like this album generally seems to retain the same level of quality & skill as The Epic, like it's all there, but this was just way more uninteresting to me than The Epic. It had some amazing moments of ecstatic bliss on songs like the opener, the last couple songs, Street Fighter Mas, the ending of Vi Lua Vi Sol & Tiffakonkae, but like ultimately there's really nothing that this album offers that you couldn't get on The Epic. I can't tell if it's a good or bad thing that it's ... read more
It’s no secret that I love jazz, and I try to make it obvious I like it a lot. With the liking of jazz, I can understand more critical perceptions of jazz, and take into account a lot of things that I couldn’t bring up in other records. This record, with all it’s glorious playing and all, did have a few blemishes in my opinion.
Despite Kamasi Washington is one of if not my favorite jazz artist of the 2010s, I don’t take into account a lot of his recordings or at least ... read more
If I could describe this album in two words it'd be "humbly ethereal". Maybe that's where the title comes from - a mediator between something so wonderfully supernatural and the beauties of heaven itself. This album sounds trapped in the realm of grandeur, outside of an artist so to speak - entering the spirit of a community effort rather than the solitary vision of one individual. It plays like a ripple effect that keeps on dropping new impacts to ripple on and that results in a ... read more
On track to be one of the top jazz records of all time but ultimately falls off near the middle point... around an hour in. If this album had been shorter it could've been amongst my top of the tops
It’s no secret that I love jazz, and I try to make it obvious I like it a lot. With the liking of jazz, I can understand more critical perceptions of jazz, and take into account a lot of things that I couldn’t bring up in other records. This record, with all it’s glorious playing and all, did have a few blemishes in my opinion.
Despite Kamasi Washington is one of if not my favorite jazz artist of the 2010s, I don’t take into account a lot of his recordings or at least ... read more
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