What constitutes a jazz document? It’s a query Robert Glasper doesn’t concern himself with an excessive amount of. The classically educated jazz pianist has at all times straddled the 2 worlds of jazz and hip-hop, most audibly on pathfinding albums the likes of Black Radio, launched on February 28, 2002. After shifting from his native Houston to attend the New College in New York, he met neo-soul singer Bilal Oliver, who would grow to be his frequent collaborator and introduction into the aware hip-hop collective often called the Soulquarians. Its illustrious ranks was comprised of different members of the Black bohemia together with Frequent, J Dilla, Questlove, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Q-Tip, and others.
Take heed to Robert Glasper’s Black Radio now.
With one foot in jazz and the opposite in hip-hop, Glasper made the gradual shift from the “acoustic Robert Glasper Trio,” from his Blue Notice debut, Canvas, to the extra hip-hop-oriented Robert Glasper Experiment. After 2009’s Double-Booked, which was equally break up between his trio and the Experiment, it was time for the Experiment to step out by itself.
With solely a five-day window to document in LA, Glasper took a really jazz-centric strategy, consulting his digital Rolodex of singers, rappers, and different previous collaborators to leap within the studio, leading to a really collaborative and spontaneous recording course of. With all instrumental tracks recorded stay, typically in a single take, it was a feat solely a bunch as versatile because the Experiment may pull off. All 4 members — Robert Glasper, keys; Casey Benjamin, sax and vocoder; Derrick Hodge, bass; and Chris Dave, drums share a deep jazz pedigree that makes improvisation and collaboration with different artists an integral a part of their musical make-up.
Throughout the diaspora that’s “Black music,” Robert Glasper Experiment’s Black Radio, launched in 2012, sought to attach all of the divergent threads of kinds, genres, and scenes into one cohesive sound inside a jazz framework. Interesting to each jazz nerds and hip-hop heads, Black Radio is a landmark album that explored new musical territory and serves as a musical collage of hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, R&B, and funk with genre-crossing visitors.
Due to his cross-genre and generational attraction, the album concurrently snagged a 2013 Grammy nod for Finest R&B Album and entered the Billboard jazz charts at primary. Breaking out of the traditional pondering round jazz is each a driving level for Glasper and a promoting level to the generations who by no means obtained down with Davis.
Whereas Miles had flirted with the idea of a hybrid album with 1992’s Doo-Bop and Herbie Hancock helped launched hip-hop to the mainstream along with his breakout 1983 hit, “Rockit” the artistic alternate between jazz and hip-hop had primarily been a one-way avenue, with hip-hop artists sampling jazz requirements. Black Radio took a special strategy, representing an offshoot of the music that hip-hop used to pattern. Lupe Fiasco, who makes an look on the monitor “Always Shine” together with Bilal, summarises Glasper’s position completely:
“The precedent was set, it was just waiting for somebody who was a master with jazz, in its own right, to come in and bridge the gap.”
The tip result’s an album constructed on complicated compositions, layered with mellow instrumentals, frantic break beats, soulful R&B vocals, and different post-bop incarnations. What ties all of the improvisational threads collectively is Glasper’s steady, light keyboards — offering a steady, sonic bedrock and guiding presence on the album.
Though a lot of Black Radio is authentic materials, it additionally incorporates a number of pop covers and jazz requirements that bridge a number of musical boundaries. David Bowie’s “Letter to Hermione” will get a seductive R&B makeover, Erykah Badu transforms right into a jazz chanteuse for Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue,” Lalah Hathaway journeys out on Sade’s “Cherish the Day” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is barely recognizable with Cobain’s lyrics layered over a keytar and Rhodes piano, giving the band, Air a run for his or her cash.
Two different standout tracks that symbolize completely different sides of the Black Radio dial are “Ah Yeah” the sultry duet between Musiq Soulchild and Chrisette Michele and the title monitor and lead single, “Black Radio” that includes freestyle verses from Yasiin Bey (previously often called Mos Def). Named after the black field that information all the data from a aircraft crash, “Black Radio” serves as a metaphor for the sturdiness of fine music, even in turbulent instances.
Black Radio may be purchased right here.
