With Some Help From Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington Gives Jazz A Boost

This past Monday, from the rather crowded stage of the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City, bandleader Kamasi Washington smiled widely. The saxophonist and arranger had plenty of reasons to do be happy during this, the first of four sold-out performances at the famous Greenwich Village music venue. Its storied stage having recently hosted artists like Bebel Gilberto, Bob James, and Eddie Palmieri, the club clearly made a wise choice in booking one of the year's most talked-about jazz artists.

As Washington introduced the members of his band, most of whom performed on his ambitious three-disc album The Epic for Brainfeeder Records, audience members no doubt knew some of their names, specifically those of bassist Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner and alto sax player Terrace Martin. However, that recognition likely came due to another record, one of this year's biggest releases at that: Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly. Indeed, Washington's own credits on the rapper's critically acclaimed recent album are undoubtedly key to explaining the success of The Epic and his sellout run at the club, not to mention his accelerating popularity with listeners who don't necessarily identify as jazz fans.

While not known for reviewing new jazz releases, popular music criticism hub Pitchfork nonetheless gave Washington's three-hour-long album an 8.6 out of 10 and coveted Best New Music status. Though Lamar does not feature on The Epic, non-jazz publications including Rolling Stone also praised the album, invariably citing To Pimp A Butterfly in their rationales.

The Epic entered the Billboard Jazz Albums charts in May at #5. While it didn't sell enough copies to make the Billboard Top 200, the album has yet to leave the jazz category's weekly top 10. Spotify listeners in the U.S. have streamed its songs nearly 1.5 million times so far this year. While that pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions of streams of To Pimp A Butterfly's tracks, Washington's supersized release has fared comparatively better on Spotify than some other recent jazz records.

A Grammy-nominated saxophonist with three prior RIAA gold-certified albums, Boney James' Futuresoul debuted at the top of the Billboard Jazz Albums chart the same week as The Epic's bow. Yet since then its songs have only streamed a third as many times as Washington's. Pre-teen piano prodigy Joey Alexander's My Favorite Things appeared on the chart a week later at #2, only mustering less than half of James' streaming total to date.

Washington's successes come at what some consider a particularly grim time for jazz. According to Nielsen, the genre accounted for just 1.4% of total music consumption in 2014. While the streaming music wars have given listeners multiple options and vast discographies to choose from, Nielsen reports that jazz comprises a mere 0.3% of all streaming music, on par with classical and significantly less than holiday/seasonal music. Accordingly, some jazz musicians including Marc Ribot have expressed grave concerns about what streaming services mean for their ability to make money from their music.

Both in data and anecdotal terms, jazz could use a few more artists with crossover appeal like Washington. Raised in Los Angeles, his history with West Coast hip-hop predates Lamar's own rap career. He appeared on Snoop Dogg's RIAA platinum-certified R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece in 2004 and subsequently on Ego Trippin' in 2008. In 2011, he played on The Game's The R.E.D. Album, which incidentally also featured a Lamar verse more than a year prior to Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. Outside of hip-hop, however, Washington's sideman gigs and session work found him performing on albums by Quincy Jones, Robin Thicke, and The Twilight Singers, as well as on several contemporary jazz records.

Still, it was his contributions last year to electronic musician Steven Ellison's You're Dead! album under his Flying Lotus moniker that increased Washington's profile in the months leading to To Pimp A Butterfly. Artists like Ellison and Lamar appeal to a young generation prone to consume their music digitally. Washington's formal association with them seems to have prompted nontraditional jazz listeners to give The Epic consideration they otherwise wouldn't for such a sprawling and uncompromising modern jazz album.

Brainfeeder, the label run and curated by Ellison, loaded all seventeen tracks to its YouTube page, generating nearly 750,000 total song plays. The album continues to perform well at Apple Music too, with The Epic currently ranking as the second-most played jazz album this week on the platform months after its release.

Fairly early in a 2015 world tour to support The Epic, Washington and his album stand to further benefit throughout the year from his career's momentum. Physical sales will see surely see a boost in October when Brainfeeder releases a deluxe edition of The Epic on vinyl.