Kamasi Washington is an American jazz musician based in Los Angeles, CA. Born into a musical family, Kamasi began playing saxophone at the age of 13, later attending the prestigious Hamilton High School of Music followed by UCLA. He has toured and recorded with the likes of Snoop Dogg, Rapahel Saadiq, Kendrick Lamar, Gerald Wilson, Lauryn Hill, Mos Def, Harvey Mason and Chaka Khan, to name a few. Along with his own 10-piece band, “The Next Step,” Kamasi released his groundbreaking solo album, “The Epic,” on May 5th, 2015. The 172-minute, triple disc masterpiece, which includes a full string orchestra and full choir, debuted at #1 on several iTunes Jazz charts, including the US, Canada, Australia, Russia and UK. In addition to composing his own music, Kamasi is part of a west coast musical collective called the “West Coast Get Down.”
 
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Mark Guiliana Official Website | Mark Guiliana on Facebook | Mark Guiliana on Twitter | Mark Guiliana on Instagram | Mark Giuliana on Soundcloud

Mark Guiliana has become recognized as one of the world’s leading drummers, admired and in demand across the spectrum from jazz to rock to electronic music for his rhythmic sophistication, creative impulse, and individual sound. He has been in the vanguard of drummers creating a new vernacular on the instrument, blending virtuosity on acoustic drums with artfully deployed electronic beats and processing. With Beat Music ‘” Guiliana’s electric band featuring a number of varied guests, hard-edged grooves and synthetic-organic fusions blend with filmic atmospherics and vocals, all driven by Guiliana’s sonic ingenuity and percussive virtuosity. In the Spring of 2019 Motema Music is slated to release the next Beat Music record. ‘Electronic music is a huge inspiration for me,’ he explains. ‘The first time I heard Squarepusher’s Feed Me Weird Things, it hit me like the first time I heard Tony Williams with Miles. Then hearing Aphex Twin was like hearing Elvin Jones with Coltrane. Experiencing that electronic music ‘” its precision, discipline, timbral imagination ‘” was just as profound for me as hearing those jazz drumming icons. So, marrying the discipline of electronic music with the improvisational sense of jazz is a lot of what the Beat Music is about.’ All About Jazz calls him ‘a beat poet of another sort… one of the few drummers who can creatively straddle and blur the electro-acoustic dividing line.’ One thing is for sure ‘” over the last decade, Mark Guiliana has become ‘one of the most influential drummers of his generation’ (JazzTimes).

Charismatic and dynamic saxophonist/bandleader Lakecia Benjamin, who has played with Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, The Roots and Macy Gray, takes center stage in her own right with the release of her unconventional soul/funk album, RETOX, on Motéma Music.
 
While she’s made quite an impact with her impressive sax work on stage and on record, Benjamin opted for a slightly different take on RETOX, allowing her talents as a composer and producer to share the spotlight with her funky sax struts. In fact, several of the CD’s 12 tracks don’t even feature sax. “This album is really a fruition of years of songwriting as much as it is a showcase for my sax playing and horn arrangements,” said Benjamin. On songs like “My Love” and “Share” she’s chosen to let the vocals carry the song. “I was more concerned with doing justice to my compositions than putting a sax solo in every song.”
 
On RETOX, Benjamin shows off her impeccable, purist jazz resume with a deep, kaleidoscopic and ingeniously arranged mix of original old school soul and funk songs as well as the Stevie Wonder classic, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing.” An A-list of established and emerging vocalists such as Krystle Warren, Amp Fiddler, Maya Azucena, Chinah Blac and Melanie Charles, join Benjamin on an album that’s as electrifyingly diverse as the cast that plays on it. “I call my band SoulSquad because, even as a kid, I always wanted to play like I was in an army of funky musicians,” says Benjamin.
 
Though her own music is immersed in the vintage sounds of James Brown, Maceo Parker, Sly and the Family Stone and the Meters as well as classic jazz, Benjamin’s soaring, dance floor-friendly grooves take the classic vibe to a whole new level. The constant throughout it all is Benjamin’s summery, sultry alto saxophone, adding something special on every cut – be it a smoldering late-night ambience, an erudite, forceful jazz intensity or the tight funk multi-horn harmony sections that pepper the proceedings throughout.
 
Hit producer Ben Kane (D’Angelo, Krystle Warren), who engineered and co-produced the album with Benjamin, gives the tracks a rich, full-bodied analog sound that nods to the great radio hits from the golden age of soul.
 
In keeping with her eclectic style, the tracks are a mix of vocal and instrumental joints. Along with the blissfully peaceful “Dreams,” there are some serious party jams: the band’s signature, P-Funk flavored opening track, “SoulSquad” – which evolved out of a jam at a concert sound check; “Maceo,” a period-perfect, JB’s-style tribute to funky sax legend Maceo Parker; and the horn-driven groove “Get Down,” which Benjamin describes as, “A go-go feel meets James Brown, just to show that vocalists aren’t the only life of the party!” Benjamin’s unique new contribution to the future of soul and funk is sure to win over fans of acts from Maceo Parker and Sharon Jones to Adele and Erykah Badu.