Listen to Kamasi Washington Talk Kendrick, Coltrane, More With Marc Maron on “WTF”

Listen to Kamasi Washington Talk Kendrick, Coltrane, More With Marc Maron on “WTF”

Kamasi Washington sat down with Marc Maron in his garage for a “WTF With Marc Maron” conversation. The two discussed Washington’s sprawling opus The Epic, his musical philosophy, his upbringing in the worlds of jazz and gospel music, the influence of John Coltrane and North Indian classical music, turning himself and his N.W.A.-loving friends on to Art Blakey, being inspired to compose original songs after hearing Stravinsky, and touring with Snoop Dogg. He also tells the story of how, almost by accident, he came to work across Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. Listen here.

Of Butterfly, he says, “At first I was just supposed to work on ‘Mortal Man,’ but everytime they played the record, someone would be, like, ‘Oh, you should put something on this too! And that, and that.” He says he was impressed Kendrick was “so hands on”; he describes writing piano parts while Kendrick sat on the couch watching. “It wasn’t a vibe of like, ‘Let me make sure you don’t do anything I don’t want you to do.’ It was, ‘I’m just curious to see how this process works.’ Most artists you don’t even meet them. … And then I would see him do superhuman stuff. One day, [producer] Terrence [Martin] brought in a new beat, and I saw Kendrick just create a whole song while he was hearing it for the first time. And it felt like a complete song.”

Washington also tells an anecdote about meeting the Bruner family at his third birthday party—including Stephen, who now goes by the name Thundercat. But it was Stephen’s brother, Ronald Jr., whose musical skills showed Washington up. “I was a drummer,” he says, “and they were younger than me, so Ronald Bruner Jr. was like this little baby. I swear he couldn’t talk, man. And he got up, and he played the drums literally like a 13-year-old. He was one! I was, like, ‘What the heck is this? This is my birthday!”

Of his music education in his early teens, Washington says:

Nobody could tell me anything except [Coltrane]. They were real supportive of me at Hamilton, because they could see I was talented. But me and a friend of mine, Cameron Graves, we were just full-fledged John Coltrane heads. We were going all the way out. Double time stuff, long solos, completely change the chord changes and drive the band director crazy. … If you can’t wrap your mind around what he’s doing, all of that emotion feels crazy. [The trick is] letting go. Bird and all those other guys, they ran right to the edge of the cliff. And they may have one pinky toe left on the cliff, but they would always run to the edge and stop. With ’Trane, you got to run and jump off. And just be okay falling down this cliff, and have the confidence that, somehow, I’m gonna have to land on my feet.

Elsewhere in the interview, Maron describes the “holy shit!” moment jazz fans tend to experience after converting to the genre, which he compares to learning to ride a bike. In response, Washington says, “You rarely hear someone say, ‘Yeah, when I was younger I was into jazz, but I don’t like it anymore.’ Once you get it, it’s one of those things. It’s so wide.”

Read “A New Standard: Kamasi Washington’s Modern Jazz Revolution” and our 5-10-15-20 interview with Marc Maron.

Watch Washington perform at Pitchfork Music Festival:

Watch Maron’s “Frames” episode on Pitchfork.tv:

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