Kamasi Washington – ‘Fearless Movement’ review: still a titan of the jazz scene

2 May, 2024

Kamasi Washington

Kamasi Washington says that, first and foremost, this sixth full-length album is is paean to flexibility. It’s a topic that few musicians of his generation are better placed to discuss. Since making his breakthrough with ‘The Epic’ in 2015, the saxophonist has become one of the more unlikely crossover success stories of recent years by taking staple jazz influences and reshaping them so adventurously that he seems to be speaking a musical language all his own; in an era where the genre has become a niche concern, ‘The Epic’ and 2018 follow-up ‘Heaven and Earth’ seemed to capture imaginations both in and outside of the jazz scene through the sheer force of their vibrancy.

Ordinarily, an artist enjoying this kind of validation might use it as a foundation to cast the shackles off on their next record, but Washington was already in the business of three-hour conceptual odysseys long before he was picking up Grammy nominations. So whilst ‘Fearless Movement is not necessarily any looser or wilder than its predecessors, it is, as the title suggests, unafraid to wander down any stylistic avenue its creator pleases. At the centre of it is the aforementioned fascination with flexibility, both physical – the whole record acts as Washington’s tribute to the art of dance – and metaphorical, inspired too by the profound changes to his life since becoming a father in 2020.

Accordingly, there is room for him to both venture into funkier, groovier territory – see the inspired George Clinton collaboration ‘Get Lit’ – and offer up slow-burning, ruminative reflection, as on the irresistibly smooth ‘Together’. The latter track is an outlier in how straightforwardly it nods to classic jazz; Washington’s usual modus operandi is to imbue his references with sounds of the near future, like he does when he channels both his hero and occasional collaborator Herbie Hancock and the Austrian synth innovator Joe Zawinul on the audacious ‘Computer Love’, which sees him update the pair’s pioneering work for the 21st century.

He meets his contemporaries on their own present-day level, too, securing the first guest turn by André 3000 since he pivoted to flute and going toe-to-toe with him on the album’s atmospheric centrepiece, ‘Dream State’. ‘Fearless Movement’ feels like more of a personal piece than ‘Heaven and Earth’, leaning more towards humanism than the spiritualism that has so enraptured Washington in the past. The key to his appeal, though, remains unchanged; he makes music that’s apparently limitless in scope and yet joyously immediate, even to the casual jazz listener.