Kamasi Washington

We're entering the Ex Dogana space, a recently redeveloped area in the Roman neighborhood of San Lorenzo, right under the ring road, a decidedly metropolitan setting now devoted to art, where this summer the Viteculture Festival is being held. Just as we walk in, we hear the news of the death of Chester Bennington, singer of Linkin Park. The evening can't help but be shaped by this sad event, which dominates the disbelieving conversations among the crowd as they wait for the performance of the new guru of world jazz: Kamasi Washington.

Tonight too, the competition in Rome is far from negligible — just to name one, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are playing another venue — but plenty of people have opted for the less frantic option, because there's something irresistible about the chance to see an artist at the absolute peak of his powers.

A saxophonist — though during the show he'll reveal that his first instrument, at age three, was actually drums (perhaps it's no coincidence there are two drum kits set up behind him) — 35 years old, and a leading figure of today's thriving Los Angeles scene, Kamasi stunned the world two years ago with a bold debut, the monumental triple album "The Epic": it had been a long time since a classic jazz record garnered such broad, cross-genre acclaim, blending the spirituality of John Coltrane with the psychedelia of Sun Ra in a musical flow firmly rooted in the present, without ever forgetting its origins.

The live rendition proves far more "contaminated" than what you hear on record: the approach is less by-the-book, which earns this saxophone giant even more credit, and funk undertones and strong rhythmic accents assert themselves right from the start, making for an unquestionably gripping set. "Cherokee" and "The Rhythm Changes" are among the eight lengthy tracks offered to the audience tonight.

The structures follow a familiar pattern: each piece opens with a theme, often carried by sax and trombone, followed by a long central section in which the band members take turns stepping into the spotlight, leaning into improvisation, complete with solos that highlight the extremely high level of musicianship on display, before the main theme returns to close things out. Kamasi also makes room for a "drums conversation," during which the two drummers are left alone to converse through their kits — a very '70s touch, but still hugely effective.

There's no need to stress how skilled each musician is: we're talking about highly accomplished jazz players, an ensemble made up of sax, trombone, clarinet/flute, keyboards, a female vocalist, bass/double bass and two drummers.

Washington earns well-deserved applause, confirming himself as an enormous natural talent — not just for his technical and interpretive skills, but also because, unlike so many equally skilled and accomplished peers, he proves to have above-average songwriting ability, and knows how to shape his compositions, making them, depending on the moment, either more conventional or wide open to countless influences.

Opening the evening was the eclectic singer-songwriter LNDFK, born in 1990, Tunisian but raised in Naples and now based in Paris, with an Italian mother and an Arab father — the daughter of those different cultures, which she works to blend together in her music, mixing electronics, neo-soul, jazzy instincts and hip-hop sensibilities. We were talking about cross-pollination, and here too there's plenty of it, in a mix that comes close to what you hear from today's Solange and the Erykah Badu of a few years back.

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