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" When you're making music, you're creeping up on your heart and pouring it out into something. "

Kamasi Washington

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" 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

" I think L.A. has one of the most innovative and forward-thinking jazz scenes in the world. New York definitely has the volume - there's more music happening in New York than anywhere else. But to me, L.A. - it's kind of a gift and a curse. "

Kamasi Washington

" '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. "

Kamasi Washington

" I think the reason why I see life as this never-ending struggle is because I imagine it having endless potential. "

Kamasi Washington

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

Kamasi Washington

" Music is an expression of life, who you are, and what you've been through. "

Kamasi Washington

" Jazz is like a telescope, and a lot of other music is like a microscope. "

Kamasi Washington

" At a certain point, when there's a barrier between you and what's right, eventually you have to decide you're not going to allow yourself to be subjugated. "

Kamasi Washington

" My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn. "

Kamasi Washington

" L.A. has always been hated on so much. I remember, the first time I went to New York, I was at jam sessions, and people would hear me and come up to me and be like, 'Oh wow, you're from L.A.? Really?' "

Kamasi Washington

" 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. "

Kamasi Washington

" I feel like I'm musically free to do what I want. "

Kamasi Washington

" 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. "

Kamasi Washington

" I went to a music academy in Los Angeles, and some friends started playing me Ravel and Prokofiev, who I liked, but what really blew me away was 'The Rite of Spring.' That's what made me get interested in classical music for real and want to study it. "

Kamasi Washington

" 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. "

Kamasi Washington

" 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. "

Kamasi Washington

" Whenever my dad wasn't practicing, he was listening to music. He had an amazing jazz collection, and my mom had stuff like Chaka Khan to help balance it out. "

Kamasi Washington

" This precious thing of empathy and love and understanding is something we have to hold and appreciate and protect. "

Kamasi Washington

" 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. "

Kamasi Washington

" Music doesn't come out of you, it comes through you. You are almost like a messenger. "

Kamasi Washington

" I kept thinking about how ironic it is how people who live in places where there is diversity tend to love it - and the people that don't live in particularly diverse places tend to be the ones attacking it. In a way, that's similar to music, which is essentially the art of bringing things together. "

Kamasi Washington

" My dad was very much a Pan-Africanist and instilled in me and my siblings a want for that knowledge. "

Kamasi Washington

" People need to realize that even the greatest jazz musicians, when they listen to jazz, they're not like, analyzing it and deconstructing it - they're enjoying it. It's like listening to any other style of music. It's saying something to you, and you kind of just absorb it. "

Kamasi Washington

" People like to compartmentalise music, especially African-American music, but it's really one thing. One very wide thing. I mean, it's like all those great records by Marvin Gaye and James Brown back in the day - there are tonnes of jazz musicians playing on them. "

Kamasi Washington

" My hope is that witnessing the beautiful harmony created by merging different musical melodies will help people realize the beauty in our own differences. "

Kamasi Washington

" When I was younger, I'd be walking down the street and suddenly panic because I had a cool idea and no way of getting it down - I'd have to sing it all the way home. Now I can hum it into my phone. "

Kamasi Washington

" The fact of the matter is that nobody understands what John Coltrane is doing except John Coltrane. And maybe not even him. So we're all experiencing it on this subconscious level. "

Kamasi Washington

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

Kamasi Washington

" There's this notion that music has to be confined to some small, simple place to be popular, something I never believed. "

Kamasi Washington

" My dad's also a musician, so jazz was always around the house. When I was 11, I developed an interest in it, and he took me to Leimert Park. At that time, it was the artistic hub of L.A., and it was right in South Central. The first concert I went to, I saw Pharoah Sanders at the World Stage club there, which only holds, like, 30 people. "

Kamasi Washington