Album Review of Heaven And Earth - Kamasi Washington 

BY NEAL MARTIN | JULY 31, 2018

Don’t like jazz. To these ears, jazz sounds like random notes played by a five-year old who has stumbled upon a broken saxophone whilst his best mate dismantles a xylophone. You know, I had a friend in Berlin who forced me to listen to an entire Ornette Coleman album. I don’t know what I had done wrong, but we haven’t spoken for 20 years. Jazz is tune expunged of melody. Jazz is Rob Burgundy’s flute solo. I like my chord progressions to be resolved. I don’t want them wandering like the Littlest Hobo, zigzagging across the American outback. Unless I am doing a waltz or listening to Money by Pink Floyd I want a steady and predictable 4/4 time signature instead of one built around the most complicated fraction possible.

“Hey man, this piece is in 11/5 time...”

That assumes the music doesn’t indecisively flit from one time signature to another...

“...and then we have this groovy double bass solo in 17/9 that switches to 13/11 whenever you hear a D-sharp diminished minor ninth or I raise my left eyebrow.”