The Epic is the triple-album debut that announced Kamasi Washington as the most important jazz musician of his generation. Recorded at Leimert Park with the West Coast Get Down collective — a rotating ensemble of 20-plus musicians including Thundercat, Ronald Bruner Jr. and Cameron Graves — it runs nearly three hours and covers spiritual jazz, swing, soul, orchestral strings and choir with absolute conviction. Washington had spent the previous year playing on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly; The Epic arrived weeks after that record and felt like the other side of the same revelation.
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