Born in 1981, Washington first made his name in 1999 with his triumph in the John Coltrane International Jazz Competition, a victory that gives an excellent indication of what to expect from him. He plays the same style of hypersensitive, spiritual jazz saxophone that was the trademark of both Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, and with comparable skill. Though he has been continuously attracting attention since the year 2000 - in the band of the legendary trumpet player Gerald Wilson, with his own groups (Young Jazz Giants, Throttle Elevator Music), his early solo records and various pop music collaborations (Ryan Adams, Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar) - his 2015 album The Epic was the true game changer, and not just in terms of his own career. With the three-hour triple LP and its rich tableau of styles, Kamasi succeeded in making modern jazz attractive to a wider audience, drawing a level of attention to the genre not seen since the fusion period of the 1970s. Washington will arrive in Müpa Budapest with his 2018 masterpiece, Heaven and Earth, which is equally epic, in parts tense and tight, in parts more spherical. His live performances also come with a guarantee of cosmic heights and the very finest quality.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest