The best word to describe The Epic is "revelation." I will freely admit I don't pay terribly close attention to new jazz releases; it's not that I believe the genre has peaked and there's really no reason to keep up with it, but I guess it's more like I really don't know where to start and most albums I have listened to didn't necessarily feel terribly important in the grand scheme. Then, along came this record. Give it all the superlatives you possibly can. Greatest jazz album in decades, sure. Among the all-time greats, probably. I feel like Kamasi really showed me that it's still worth digging. Even in a genre where seemingly all the greatest works are 60 years behind us, there's always going to be the chance that something will stand the test of time, and boy oh boy does this ever. I will never get over the sheer hubris to release a triple album, where literally any combination of these tracks of normal album length could be the greatest album of any year this generation. Rather than spreading out the music over time and milking the creative explosion as long as he could, Kamasi was just like "here ya go." Legend.
Reviewed on Tuesday, January 31st, 2023, 12:04pm.
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