This interview was originally broadcast on September 9th, 2026 over the KALX airwaves.
Last Will: This is Last Will on KALX Berkeley, and I’d like to welcome composer, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist with an emphasis on tenor saxophone, Kamasi Washington. Originally from LA, but really a man of the world, welcome, Kamasi.
Kamasi Washington: Oh, thanks for having me.
Last Will: Kamasi is currently on his West Coast tour. Coming up, he will be playing at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland on September 13th and 14th. Four shows from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, and both early shows are already sold out. So, how has the tour been going so far?
Kamasi Washington: Been good. It’s been good. We’ve been having some good times out here.
Last Will: Yeah, that’s good. I like how the last track on the album, Fearless Movement, is called “Prologue.” It’s kind of an existential invocation of the line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is “What’s past is prologue,” paired with a beautiful video behind it. Performing that song live, is there any choreography? I know venues differ as far as stage size, and it’s beautiful even without it, but the choreography uses dance to bring all these mediums together. Talk about performing “Prologue” live.
Kamasi Washington: Yeah. I mean, we have had dancers sometimes, though we probably won’t have them at Yoshi’s.
Last Will: Yoshi’s, yeah.
Kamasi Washington: But I grew up with my aunt, Lulu Washington—she’s a great dancer, choreographer, and teacher as well. I grew up going to her studio, watching them dance and create these surrealist movements and spaces. She choreographed for people like McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane, and all different types of artists. So I grew up with this idea of a connection between very improvisational music, movement, and dance. It was really cool to get to experiment with that on this record.
Last Will: Yeah. I think you referred to it in an interview as your “dance record.” You’ve put out many great albums, all forward-moving. Jumping back to the beginning, you really got inspired to be a musician when you picked up the saxophone. As a multi-instrumentalist who started on clarinet and other instruments, when you moved to saxophone as a young kid, it had a voice. Talk about how the saxophone is an extension of your voice compared to other instruments.
Kamasi Washington: Yeah. I started off on drums, played piano, then clarinet. It’s hard to put into words, but it’s almost like finding your spirit animal. When you find an instrument that resonates, it creates a sound that matches what you hear in your head. When I played other instruments, it was fun, but there was a distance. When I picked up the saxophone, there was an immediate closeness. It’s something you just feel. I’ve seen other people get it later in life too, like Brandon Coleman. He used to play drums, but when he started playing piano, music became different for him. Part of being an instrumentalist is finding that instrument that really speaks to you.
Last Will: Right, I feel you. I have a saxophone, but I don’t have the blessing of being willing to practice. Even as a non-playing amateur who picked it up later in life, I feel how it’s an extension of your voice, especially the alto. We’re talking to Kamasi Washington, who is performing at Yoshi’s Jazz Club on September 13th and 14th, here on KALX Berkeley. My name is Last Will.
Kamasi, Yoshi’s was built for jazz. Have you played there before?
Kamasi Washington: I played there once with Stanley Clarke.
Last Will: Wow. Early on, you got to associate with Billy Higgins, whom I saw at Yoshi’s before he passed. “Smilin’ Billy”—his drum solos were like stories. What was Higgins like?
Kamasi Washington: Man, it was like knowing Superman personally. Growing up in South Central LA, we played in an area called Leimert Park, where Billy Higgins had a club called The World Stage. My dad took me there for my very first concert when I was seven or eight to see Pharoah Sanders. When I got older and wanted to go to jam sessions, I’d take the bus over there. You’d be walking around Leimert and there’s the actual Billy Higgins! Later in high school, when we booked shows at his club, he’d come by and ask to sit in, and we’d tell him, “You’ve got a pad, take the throne!” He was just a beautiful soul who used his superpowers for good. As great a musician as he was, he was an even greater human being.
Last Will: Respect for the elders and for you carrying on the tradition. You shy away from being labeled “the future of jazz,” but you respect music as ever-evolving and as a way to bring people together. That is one of the best definitions of the future.
Kamasi Washington: Absolutely. Music has a profound ability to reset our programming in a moment. It allows you to connect with others, share experiences, and hear ideas differently. When I listened to people like Billy Higgins, Art Blakey, or John Coltrane—even though Coltrane died before I was born—it felt like they wrote their music specifically for me. It gives you a window into their spirit where you feel like you know them.
Last Will: Yeah, their spirit lives on. I read that “Transition” by Coltrane really struck you. Your sound on saxophone is very powerful, yet sensitive, and you are a wonderful composer as well as an improviser. You’ve also done covers going back to your early self-released albums—like Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” “Amazing Grace,” “The Lord’s Prayer,” and “Going Up Yonder.” Do you ever dig back to those in live performances alongside your recent compositions?
Kamasi Washington: Yeah, if the spirit moves us, we’ll jump into “Give Thanks” or those other songs.
Last Will: Jumping forward to “Prologue”—it’s an old tango melody from Astor Piazzolla that you transformed in the spirit of dance. How did you decide to cover that?
Kamasi Washington: About 15 years ago, I played a gig featuring Astor Piazzolla’s music, and that melody just stuck with me. Piazzolla was rebellious in his approach, adding different instruments and solos. For that concert, they had us jazz musicians playing tango in a very different way.
When working on this album, I was feeling the spirit of my aunt, movement, and growth. In the studio, I remembered that Piazzolla tune. I originally envisioned doing it rubato as a ballad because I loved the melody. I brought in Cameron to help shape it as a ballad, but as he sat at the piano, Brandon walked in listening to a drum-and-bass track on his phone. We could hear it as we played, and I went, “Ooh-wee, that’s it right there!” That switched the whole direction.
Last Will: On the strength of an accordion, bringing together cross-cultural references! That skill was also key in your work on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, where you did string arrangements. I read that you and your collaborator wanted to sneak some “outsideness” into the mainstream, much like Duke Ellington did with “Mood Indigo.”
Kamasi Washington: Terrace and I usually sneak little inside things into records, but Kendrick was actively asking for it. When Terrace told me, I asked, “Are you sure?” Then he played it for me, and I realized everyone—Thundercat, Soundwave, all of us—was really going in without pulling punches. Kendrick pulled it all together to create something timeless.
Last Will: Beyond your albums and working with Kendrick Lamar, you were commissioned by Michelle Obama to score her documentary, and you played the national anthem for an NFL season opener. What were those experiences like?
Kamasi Washington: For the national anthem, we performed it in Brazil during game one of the NFL season while on tour in South America. We had some technical difficulties that made the sound a bit foggy, but it was a great opportunity to grace those stages.
For Michelle Obama’s documentary Becoming, the director reached out and showed me footage. I felt a film score is like the frame to a painting. Since Michelle and Barack Obama are open about their music tastes, I did a deep dive into what they listened to, creating music that felt like it could have been playing in the background during those moments of her life.
Last Will: This is KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. My name is Last Will, speaking with Kamasi Washington in support of his performance at Yoshi’s in Oakland on September 13th and 14th. You also participated in celebrations for Miles Davis’s and John Coltrane’s centennials.
Kamasi Washington: Chief and I celebrated them at the Newport Jazz Festival by combining their music. We also included the great Sonny Rollins, paying tribute to him. We’re recording that music now. Putting two songs together creates an energy where it sounds like the compositions are talking to each other, giving new light to classic pieces.
Last Will: They would love how you’re bringing it into the future. What do you see for the future of music and composing?
Kamasi Washington: Everything builds on what came before. It warms my heart to imagine a kid 20 or 30 years from now finding something interesting in my music and taking it further. Life is the main focus, and music is the frame for life. Coltrane’s music felt like a map helping me navigate the world. I’m honored when people associate me with him, though to me, John Coltrane is sacred.
Last Will: You carry on in that vein with a powerful, spiritual sound that lets people know they aren’t alone.
To wrap up, what was on that Art Blakey mixtape that first attracted you to jazz?
Kamasi Washington: My cousin gave me a tape containing “Free For All,” “Mosaic,” Lee Morgan’s “The Gigolo,” and “Book of Delight.” It was a great mixture of Blue Note hard bop.
Last Will: Anything else you’d like to say to the audience?
Kamasi Washington: Today is the birthday of the great Gerald Wilson, a incredible mentor who taught me so much about harmony and music philosophy. Keep an eye out for new records coming out this year, and come through to Yoshi’s! You can stay updated at kamasiwashington.com.
Last Will: Thank you, Kamasi.
Kamasi Washington: This is Kamasi Washington. You’re listening to KALX Berkeley. Hope to see you soon!
