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From album
The Epic
Kamasi Washington · 2015 · Track 5
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The story behind
If there's one thing that stands out in The Next Step it's its ability to pull you in from the very first measure. It's not just the length —fourteen minutes and forty-nine seconds— but how that duration feels necessary, as if each note breathes in its own time without rushing to reach anywhere. Kamasi Washington's saxophone weaves melodies that seem to float over a fabric of strings and percussion, where the improvised and the written blend seamlessly without you noticing the cut. There's a moment when the piece completely unravels, and in the silence that follows, one understands why many consider it the gateway to his music: it doesn't ask you to understand it, it invites you to feel it.
They recorded it between several hands in 2015, with a team of engineers who signed off on every cable and microphone: Tony Austin, Chris Constable, Julie Everson, Carson Lehman, Conrad Leon, Brian Rosemeyer, and Tyler Shields took turns capturing what Kamasi Washington and his band had been nurturing for years. Benjamin Tierney made sure the sound didn't drown in the mix, and Washington himself handled arranging and producing every detail. It was released in May of that year under the Brainfeeder label, and while initially critics received it with enthusiasm —on Metacritic it scored 83 out of 100—, over time it became a bridge for those wanting to approach jazz without prejudice. It didn't aim to be perfect, but real.