West Coast Get Down

Each member of the collective grew up in Los Angeles County.[2] Though they attended different high schools, they were first brought together in 1993 thanks to Locke High School music educator Reggie Andrews, who led an extracurricular music ensemble in Watts called the Multi-School Jazz Band.[6][7] Members of this band included Kamasi Washington (saxophone), brothers Stephen Bruner (bass) and Ronald Bruner Jr. (drums), their cousin Terrace Martin (saxophone), Miles Mosley (bass), Tony Austin (drums), Brandon Coleman (keyboard), Cameron Graves (piano), and Ryan Porter (trombone).[8][9]

As high schoolers, the group often held jam sessions in Washington's garage studio, affectionately dubbed "the Shack."[2] Washington's senior year of high school, he formed a quartet with Graves and the Bruner brothers called the Young Jazz Giants, which recorded and released an eponymous album on Birdman Records in 2004.[10][11] The larger group began performing at jazz clubs throughout Los Angeles after graduation, including at the World Stage, an African-American arts space in Leimert Park founded by jazz drummer Billy Higgins, and at the coffee shop 5th Street Dick's, where in 2005 they performed their first gig as a 10-piece ensemble.[12] Between 2008 and 2009, Ryan Porter led recording sessions at the Shack, where the band was cramped, overheated, and frequently interrupted by incoming planes at the nearby Los Angeles International Airport landing strip. The recordings from these sessions materialized a decade later as Porter's 2018 album The Optimist.[13]

The group, now joined by vocalist Patrice Quinn, also frequented the Piano Bar, a Hollywood cocktail lounge and jazz venue that became the group's home. In 2008, they began a twice-weekly performing residency at the Piano Bar that would last eight years until the space closed in 2016.[2][14] Washington said of the venue, "At Piano Bar, we refined ourselves ... We learned how to play each other’s music. That’s where our separate musical endeavors started to influence each other.”[12] The West Coast Get Down collective was officially established at the Piano Bar in 2009, with Mosley as its founder and Washington as its spiritual leader.[15]

Kamasi Washington and Ryan Porter performing at San Sebastian Jazz Festival in 2017

In 2010, Los Angeles-based producer Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus, invited Washington to record an album for Ellison's label Brainfeeder, giving Washington free rein to make whatever kind of album he wanted. Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner had previously collaborated with Ellison, appearing on the Flying Lotus's album Cosmogramma (2010).[8] According to The New York Times, "Ellison didn’t blink when Washington told him that his album for Brainfeeder was going to be three hours of music."[15]

In December 2011, the West Coast Get Down rented studio space at Kingsize Soundlabs in Echo Park, where they recorded for 30 straight days from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., sometimes sleeping in the studio, in what came to be known as the "KSL Sessions." With Tony Austin doubling as the studio engineer,[16] they recorded 192 songs, many of which later appeared on albums including Washington's Brainfeeder release The Epic (2015), Mosley's Uprising (2017), Ronald Bruner's Triumph (2017), Graves's Planetary Prince (2017), Porter's Spangle-Lang Lane (2017), Coleman's Resistance (2018), and Mosley and Austin's joint project BFI (2014).[2][12][15][17] While productive, these sessions were taxing for the musicians, with Mosley recounting, "It was, creatively, the most freeing thing I’ve ever been a part of, but as a human being, it was really hard."[12] Porter has said, "Those sessions are a blur, honestly, but I just remember us approaching that music so cinematically."[2]

In 2013, rapper Kendrick Lamar, who had been friends with Terrace Martin since 2005,[18] enlisted Martin to work on his upcoming album To Pimp a Butterfly.[19] Lamar also invited Thundercat and Flying Lotus to play on the album,[20] and Martin later tapped Washington to provide string arrangements and saxophone parts.[21][22] Miles Mosley and Ronald Bruner Jr. also participated in the album's recording sessions.[2] To Pimp a Butterfly was released in 2015 to widespread critical acclaim, garnering 11 nominations and five wins at the 58th Grammy Awards.[12] It is regarded as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time.[23]

Before the Piano Bar closed in 2016, the West Coast Get Down played one of the venue's closing performances, a "secret show" with little advertisement.[12] Members of the group have since pursued their own projects and tours, often alongside some subset of the collective.[12] Regarding the future of the collective, Ronald Bruner Jr. said in 2020, "Being in this band is a gig forever. I could be 90 and Kamasi will still call me!" Washington said the group has discussed creating an album under the West Coast Get Down moniker sometime in the future.[2]