dt news: Kamasi Creates a Soundtrack
By Eddie Kim
Jul 23, 2015 Updated Jul 31, 2015
http://www.ladowntownnews.com/arts_and_entertainment/kamasi-washington-creates-a-soundtrack-for-the-riots/article_16080038-2ffc-11e5-a760-8b5ca6b66116.html
photo courtesy Kamasi Washington
Jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, fresh off the release of his acclaimed album The Epic, leads a 12-person band for a Grand Performances show on Saturday, July 25.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Kamasi Washington remembers the sights and sounds of the Los Angeles Riots. He was just 11 years old in April 1992, when a Simi Valley jury found four white LAPD officers not guilty in the beating, famously recorded on video, of African-American motorist Rodney King.
As the city erupted in a roiling mass of activists, looters, police, gun-toting store owners and everyone in between, Washington’s parents, both teachers, wouldn’t let him leave his South L.A. home. His friends soon flaunted new clothes and shoes. They would ask Washington: Why aren’t you out there grabbing new Jordans, too?
“Not everyone was out there for the cause,” Washington said by phone last week. “But I understood that, too. If you want a society with rules that everyone adheres to, those policies need to protect everyone or people aren’t going to follow them.”
The memories have been rekindled as Washington prepares for a Saturday, July 25, Cal Plaza Watercourt performance dubbed “65 to 92: The Rhythm Changes But the Struggle Remains.” The 8 p.m. concert reflects on the Watts and Los Angeles Riots through the music of the two eras. It is part of a packed weekend in the Grand Performances series, with a Friday afternoon show featuring East L.A. band Mexico 68 and a Sunday evening concert with acts from Guadalajara and Colombia.
Washington, a 34-year-old jazz saxophonist, has earned heavy praise in recent months for the virtuosic playing in his three-hour debut album, appropriately titled The Epic, and rapper Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. “65 to 92,” which is free to attend, features a 12-man band led by Washington, who has mashed jazz with hip-hop into new compositions. Washington said it wasn’t easy, but he’s happy with how the works of jazz luminaries like Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman interweave with the sounds of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac.
“Music is often a socially conscious art,” he said. “And the world you live in affects the music you make or listen to, and vice versa.”
A History of Violence
“65 to 92” is the fourth and final piece in Grand Performances’ Aftershocks program. Leigh Ann Hahn, director of programming for Grand Performances, brainstormed the series to mark the 50th anniversary of the Watts Riots. Previously this season the venue hosted “Wattstax Revisited,” a tribute to the seminal 1972 music festival that Hahn calls “the Black Woodstock”; “Watts50,” an evening of rap driven by social politics; and The Last Jimmy, a hip-hop musical written by Dice Raw, a rapper and frequent collaborator with The Roots.
“One of the important parts of Grand Performances’ work in the city is we pose challenges to local musicians that go beyond what they’ve done in the recording studio,” Hahn said. “Our goal is to support musicians, but also give them ways to explore other ideas and music, to tell their story.”
Washington has been a frequent Grand Performances presence this year, having jumped on the sax for “Wattstax Revisited” and a Gaslamp Killer show last month. He said being part of Aftershocks has inspired him to reflect on what caused the riots and what we’ve learned. Things seem better today, he said, yet recent high-profile incidents of violence against black people around the county give him pause.
Hahn already has ideas for next season’s thematic program, and she hopes to keep programming socially conscious shows to make Grand Performances relevant to audiences and creative talent alike.
“Next year I hope to look at the same sort of geopolitical local issues, but with more of a focus on the Latino community’s history,” she said.
Triple Play
Appearing Friday at noon at Cal Plaza is Mexico 68, an East L.A. band that specializes in Afrobeat. It’s a kind of social commentary in of itself, Hahn noted, to see a primarily Latino band interpreting the grooves of a genre that melded Nigerian and Ghanaian sounds with the funk and jazz popular in the 1970s.
Sunday, meanwhile, features Los Master Plus and Puerto Candelaria, both of which crank out dance-friendly cumbia beats but with completely different attitudes. The 7 p.m. show kicks off with the former, a duo with a flair for the tongue-in-cheek. Consider them the LMFAO of Guadalajara — they’re known for, among other things, donning absurdly decorated shirts and big cowboy hats.
Puerto Candelaria has a similarly irreverent take on cumbia, though with more traditional instrumentation. While the six-piece band slips some sly social commentary into their tunes, Sunday evening is all about high-energy fun, Hahn said.
Mexico 68 plays at noon on Friday, July 24; “65 to 92” takes place Saturday at 8 p.m.; and Los Master Plus/Puerto Candelaria play on Sunday at 7 p.m. at Grand Performances, 350 S. Grand Ave., (213) 687-2190 or grandperformances.org.