The Jazz of Now

Late last night, while writing, I was listening to a live performance by the Charlie Parker Quintet, recorded in 1953. The quintet is made up of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and Charles Mingus. If you don’t know much about jazz, you can think of this quintet as the dream team of the 1950s. 

I’d been writing for about 45 minutes to their transcendent music, editing an essay on the purpose of life (you can find the original draft here)

But as the Live at Massy Hall album ended, my iTunes transitioned into one of the latest albums from Kamasi Washington, and I’ll be damned if my whole body didn’t perk up.

I love Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, and all the others, but they played before the invention of 70s soul music and the flowering of the electric bass-masters of funk.

Kamasi Washington comes at the same tradition as The Quintet, but he’s influenced by hip hop, by dance, by the magic that George Clinton stole down from the gods, by Maya Angelou, by the development of Afrocentrism, and by Malcolm X (“Our time as victims is over,” a voice repeats on the first song. “We will no longer ask for justice. Instead, we will take our retribution.”)

It’s impossible to talk about jazz as an art form or as a cultural force without referencing the brilliant musicians who performed with the Charlie Parker Quintet. They are rightfully placed near the center of jazz because of their outsize gravitational influence on all of the artists who followed them. 

But decades from now, the history of jazz and its influence on culture will also include the bright shining star and the incredible musical force that is Kamasi Washington.

If you’re not listening to him now, you’re missing out on the brilliance of a living master.