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" At the time of 'The Epic,' as a core band, we were all spending so much time apart making music for other people that by the time we got together - even though we grew up together and there's a special connection we have - it was like a rare privilege to come together. "

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" Los Angeles has always been overlooked as far as jazz, and just high-level music in general. But, like, my dad's a musician, so I've grown up around so many brilliant musicians that nobody outside Los Angeles knows about. "

Kamasi Washington

Music

Los Angeles

Jazz

" I've known that about myself, that I've had two sides: one that's pretty tactical, down to earth, aware. There's also a really spacey side. But I realized they're kinda the same thing. "

" Every day we're here is an opportunity to do what we can to make the world right, to help someone close or far from us, to not get so hung up on what we can't do, and remember what we can. "

" In general, in my life, one of the coolest things that I've been able to do is to go to different places and meet different people and see how they view the world and to learn what their music is and what their language is, and the food they eat and everything. That idea of the beauty of the vastness of the world has just been my life. "

" The song 'Leroy and Lanisha' on my album 'The Epic' is really my homage to 'Linus and Lucy.' "

" Music is an expression of who you are, and - at least in that sense - I think I epitomize Black Lives Matter. I'm a big black man, and I'm easily misunderstood. Before I started wearing these African clothes, people would assume that I was a threat and that it was O.K. to be violent toward me. "

Kamasi Washington

People

Think

" There's a whole stereotype of the jazz musician that's into poetry and reading and metaphysics and all that stuff. Really, it's a sign of someone who's searching, whose mind is open, looking for answers. Whatever ideas you may come up with, the beautiful thing is the search. "

" I never had a problem moving between jazz and hip-hop. "

" Gerald Wilson was one of my mentors: he was in his nineties before he passed and, literally, every time I saw him, he'd be like, 'Man, Kamasi, I've got this new thing! Nobody ever heard anything like this before!' It's amazing hanging out with somebody that was born in 1918. "

" So much good music has been looked over because of preconceived notions of genre. "

" Every time you learn a new language, your understanding of language overall grows, so every time I would learn new music, my understanding of music would grow because I was taken to an extreme in a different direction, and that was, in effect, carrying over into what I do. "

" Fela Kuti blew my mind. His playing is very unorthodox, but I learned how to appreciate that. "

" I like living on that edge, musically. I like a bit of insecurity and that feeling of not really knowing what's going to happen. "

Kamasi Washington

Edge

Living

" Hip-hop is a collage. It samples from all different styles of music. "

" Isaac Smith sounded like Curtis Fuller, Corey Hogan sounded like Sonny Rollins, Terrace Martin sounded like Jackie McLean. Already, at 13, 14, 15 years old. "

Kamasi Washington

Years

Isaac

" L.A. is a big city that has a lot of music in it but is not necessarily known for it. A lot of musicians got lost in that. You can make a living; you can gig a lot within the city and never get out of it. That was something that me and my friends, our generation, were afraid of happening to us. "

Kamasi Washington

Music

Friends

" We've played so many places where, if you asked people, 'Do you like jazz?' they would be like, 'Not at all.' But I think that if you're really putting yourself out there and really communicating, music can put you beyond people's preconceptions, beyond their playlist. "

" As musicians, we have one of the greatest tools of bringing people together in music. "

" In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm just taking the music that comes to me and trying to make it as beautiful as I can. You can't really predict or control how people will receive that music. "

" My dad was really into avant garde jazz: Archie Shepp, John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. "

" American music comes from the same tree, but sometimes we get to these places in history where we forget where things come from, and they get compartmentalized. "

" As a musician, your instrument is almost predetermined. I had played drums, piano, clarinet, but when I heard Wayne Shorter play the saxophone, I knew that sound is what I wanted. "

" I've had experiences where people say, 'I hated jazz before I heard you guys!' I'm like, 'You didn't hate jazz before you heard us; you hated the idea of jazz.' "

" We do have the power to kind of make this world what we want it to be. But we have to just choose to do it ourselves and not wait for someone else. "

" You have to dig deep to make great music, and it gets harder and harder. It's a difficult, painful process to reach deep in there and pull out the real gems. And you have to have that little bit of anxiety of, 'Can I really do this? Am I good enough?' You need that in the recipe to really get down in there. "

" West Coast hip hop was the sound of my neighbourhood. It was something I could relate to because it had a sound that felt like my surroundings - almost more so than what they were saying. That music was made to be bumped in a Cadillac! "

" We started 'Heaven And Earth' in 2016. That was probably the heaviest touring year of my whole life. We probably did almost 200 shows in 2016. We went into the studio, and I honestly didn't know what the album was going to be. So I just kind of started picking songs that I liked. "

" Someone like Donald Trump can't control the way I show love to my brother. He can't control the way I feel about my neighbors. "

" I was hearing music in my head and trying to play it on the clarinet, but it didn't match.' Then, literally the first day, it did with the saxophone. I was like, 'Oh man, that's what I've been trying to do; this is what it's supposed to sound like.' "

" 'Harmony of Difference,' to me, was an opportunity to celebrate one another. And 'Fists of Fury' is an opportunity for us to protect one another. "