Kamasi Washington plays jazz on a scale that makes most rooms feel small — the orchestral sweep, the towering saxophone lines, the gospel-sized choir swells. So a Monday night with him in the 750-capacity Ballroom at Higher Ground is the kind of show you build a drive around. This is big music in a room where you can actually feel it move.
About Kamasi Washington
Washington is a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader out of Los Angeles who came up through the West Coast Get Down collective and introduced himself to the wider world in 2015 with The Epic — a sprawling triple album on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label, recorded with a full orchestra and choir. It didn’t so much arrive as announce itself.
The credits piled up from there. He played saxophone on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, scored the Michelle Obama documentary Becoming (earning both Grammy and Emmy nominations), and co-founded the jazz-meets-hip-hop supergroup Dinner Party with Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, and 9th Wonder. His most recent album, 2024’s Fearless Movement, leans into rhythm and dance — flexibility as a guiding idea — without shedding any of the orchestral ambition that made his name.
This is also a Newport Jazz Festival summer for Washington: he’s on the 2026 bill alongside Herbie Hancock and Jon Batiste. The South Burlington date lands in the thick of an active stretch in the Northeast.
The Venue
Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vermont is one of the most respected independent venues in the Northeast, and its 750-cap Ballroom is the sweet spot — big enough for Washington’s full band, intimate enough that the horns hit you square in the chest. Showtime is 8:00 PM. If you’re coming up from the Adirondacks or making the longer haul, this is a show worth planning the whole evening around.
Tickets
Tickets run $45–$50, and Washington is on a short Northeast run — this Ballroom won’t stay open for long. Grab seats before it sells through.