California Sounds: L.A.’s Kamasi Washington goes ‘Live at the Apollo’

Kamasi Washington performs at the Arroyo Seco Weekend music festival in Pasadena in 2018. He’s the subject of a new Amazon Prime documentary, “Live at the Apollo.” Kamasi Washington, “Live at the Apollo” Last year when the saxophonist Washington brought his overpowering band to the Apollo Theater in Harlem for the first time, a crew was there to document it. Five years after Washington unveiled his career-defining debut, “The Epic,” at the Regent in downtown Los Angeles, we see the artist on the other coast, walking the Apollo’s stage during sound check and pausing to stare at the empty auditorium. “To be invited to come and play at the Apollo is to be asked to share your music on one of the greatest stages that there is,” Washington says near the film’s opening. Introducing “Truth” as a celebration of diversity, Washington tells the crowd that they’ll hear five different melodies at once “as a metaphor for just how much love we can create when we all come together.” The interplay that follows is a lesson in how complex ideas can become fluid musical expressions.