Kamasi Washington and his Harmony of Difference bring Jazz to the Museum
We were waiting for new music from the saxophonist Kamasi Washington since his 2015 triple-LP work The Epic, and now a new amazing performance has arrived.
His new work debuted at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC.
“Harmony of Difference” is an audio-visual installation, more than 30 minutes off jazz suite divided into six parts. The first five parts (“Desire,” “Humility,” “Knowledge,” “Perspective” and “Integrity”) are accompanied by videos of Afrocentric paintings made by Washington’s sister, Amani.
The last one is an hypnotic video. Music and Concept by Kamasi Washington, written and directed by AG Rojas.
Kamasi Washington explains that his idea arrives from a simple thought:
“(speaking about} problems among all the different people coexisting in this country. I never looked at it that way; my experience living in Los Angeles was that I appreciated the fact that there were so many different cultures, so many different people here, and us all being thrust together was a cool thing. How do I use my music to speak to that? And I started thinking about this idea of counterpoint, which is basically taking things that are different and finding the connection, to have each one elevate the other."
“My hope is that witnessing the beautiful harmony created by merging different musical melodies will help people realize the beauty in our own differences.”
