The Robert Glasper Project Looks BANANAS!!!!!!

Kil889
Kil889 Members Posts: 158
edited January 2012 in R&B & Alternatives
Check ou his first single featuring Chrisette Michelle and Musiq and some behind the scene footage of Glasper in the studio with some of the cats on his album that include Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco, Stokley Williams, Erykah Badu, Lalah Hathaway, Ledisi, Derrick Hodge, Chris "Daddy" Dave, Musiq and Chrisette Michelle...

http://www.willmakebeatsforfood.com/2012/01/houston-we-have-problem-robert-glasper.html

Comments

  • SimpleKomplexity
    SimpleKomplexity Members Posts: 276
    I'm copping this for sure!!
  • waterproof
    waterproof Members Posts: 9,412 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yes "Black Radio" line up is crazy im copping it next week when it drops. here's some tracks from BLACK RADIO. a nice album from the spring

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN0tFgLcp4g

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuuvDrb3bQ0&feature=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz5sxLTFqHg&feature=related

  • waterproof
    waterproof Members Posts: 9,412 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The Corner of Jazz and Hip-Hop

    A FEW tracks into “Black Radio,” Robert Glasper Experiment’s hazily soulful new album, there comes an accidental manifesto, culled from studio banter among the members of the band. “People think of jazz musicians, they pigeonhole us,” this collage begins, before moving on to complaints about the coarsening of musical standards, the sway of industry “bigwigs” and the dull complacency of popular taste. It’s a pretty sour train of thought until this closing conviction: “The best thing you can do for people, I think, is just be honest, man.” (And a grace note: “Yo, we’ve got to do something, man.”)

    ArtsBeat: Robert Glasper Experiment: So Is It Jazz? (February 24, 2012)

    Bill Douthart for The New York Time

    The pianist Robert Glasper.

    “Black Radio,” due out on Tuesday, is the fourth Blue Note release by Robert Glasper, a pianist who has spent the last decade or so building on a dual firmament of acoustic jazz, and artisanal hip-hop and R&B. It’s the album he has been hinting at for years: an earnest confab with some of the artists in his network, like the politically minded rappers Lupe Fiasco and Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and the vibe-oriented singers Erykah Badu, Meshell Ndegeocello, Musiq Soulchild and Chrisette Michele. Strikingly, given that each of its 12 tracks features at least one guest vocalist, the album unfolds as a coherent statement rather than an all-star mishmash: Robert Glasper and friends, not Robert Glasper and Friends.

    Just as strikingly, “Black Radio” is the rare album of its kind that doesn’t feel strained by compromise or plagued by problems of translation. It convincingly mirrors the texture and mood of contemporary black bohemia, largely because Mr. Glasper and his band — the bassist Derrick Hodge, the drummer Chris Dave and the saxophonist Casey Benjamin — are an integral part of that scene, with sideman credits that include not only the album’s guest roster but also the likes of Maxwell, whose most recent arena tour had the Experiment’s rhythm section at its core.

    “There’s been a lot of attempts at fusing jazz and hip-hop,” said Don Was, the veteran record producer recently appointed president of Blue Note. “Many times you see the Scotch tape holding the two things together. And I think Robert’s done it seamlessly. Because that’s who he is.”

    Mr. Glasper, 33, has a strong but slouchy build and the garrulous, unselfconscious air of a guy accustomed to putting others at ease. Born and raised in Houston, he grew up playing in church and attended the same arts-intensive high school that has produced so many serious young jazz musicians, like Jason Moran, another forward-thinking pianist on Blue Note. (Mr. Dave went there too, as did Beyoncé.)

    “It’s totally natural. It’s home,” Mr. Glasper said of the new album’s style during an interview that began at his upstairs apartment in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. “I was playing that kind of stuff before I was playing jazz: R&B stuff, church vibe.”

    And while “Black Radio” takes cross-pollination to proud extremes — its early stretch finds Ms. Badu on a head-bobbing version of the jazz standard “Afro Blue,” followed by Lalah Hathaway on a faithfully slinky cover of Sade’s “Cherish the Day” — Mr. Glasper has been pursuing this agenda virtually from the start. “Mood,” the 2003 debut that got him signed to Blue Note, features interludes and chord progressions reminiscent of hip-hop production; it also features Bilal, the eclectic soul singer whom Mr. Glasper had met during their freshman orientation at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

    Mr. Glasper’s first three Blue Note albums follow an arc that he now attributes to strategy: “I wanted to do a few trio records, so no one can sit there and say, ‘This cat can’t really play.’ ” His first such outing, “Canvas” (2005), suggested youthful emulation of his jazz-piano hero, Mulgrew Miller. The follow-up, “In My Element” (2007), inched closer to a hip-hop sensibility, while “Double Booked” (2009) superficially straddled the divide, with its first half involving his acoustic trio and its second half featuring the Experiment.

    Respect flowed from both constituencies, sometimes in unexpected ways. Q-Tip was a regular at Mr. Glasper’s trio gigs well before they became collaborators; Lupe Fiasco first encountered his music by way of an in-flight entertainment menu. And at some point Mr. Glasper began to notice that his trio’s following skewed younger and more African-American than the current norm in jazz. “All the club owners were like, ‘Hey, we don’t usually see this kind of crowd,’ ” he said. “And I love the fact that you go to my show, you see a 17-year-old black kid and an 80-year old white woman, bopping. To Dilla.”

    That would be J Dilla, the visionary producer whose exactingly elliptical innovations have resonated almost as deeply in certain jazz circles as they have in hip-hop and R&B. (He died, after a debilitating illness, in 2006.) If anyone in jazz deserves credit for his post-bop incursions, it’s Mr. Glasper, who put a tribute called “J Dillalude” on “In My Element,” and often alludes to the producer’s work even when playing standards. His arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Think of One,” from “Double Booked,” opens with a skittering refraction of the theme before the trio kicks in, gradually sidling into “Stakes Is High,” the J Dilla-produced title track from a 1996 De La Soul album.
  • waterproof
    waterproof Members Posts: 9,412 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The Corner of Jazz and Hip-Hop CONTINUES

    “Nobody plays Dilla like us,” Mr. Glasper said, and then leaned toward my recording device. “End quote.” He laughed and clarified: “I’m one of the only jazz musicians who can say I worked with him. I was at the crib.” (As he occasionally reminds his audiences, he was there when J Dilla created “Reminisce,” a woozy track on Bilal’s 2001 debut.)

    The creative exchange between jazz and hip-hop has always worked best when jazz provided source material rather than a methodology. Miles Davis wanly flirted with the concept during the same era that yielded classic jazz-informed hip-hop by Guru, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. “The precedent was set,” Lupe Fiasco said. “It was just waiting for somebody who was a master with jazz, in its own right, to come in and bridge the gap. It was a matter of the stars aligning, and they aligned over Robert, and the Experiment. They play hip-hop and jazz, but with a mastery of both. And not a schooled mastery.”

    Of course the same could fairly be said of the trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who appeared on the Holy Trinity of millennial neo-soul albums — D’Angelo’s “Voodoo,” Common’s “Like Water for Chocolate” and Ms. Badu’s “Mama’s Gun” — and later made a splash with his own “RH Factor” (Verve), which featured those artists and a handful of others. Mr. Glasper, who pulled a sideman shift on an RH Factor tour, agreed that Mr. Hargrove’s crossover effort was the obvious precursor to his own. “The difference is that I made it a bit more mainstream,” he said, citing the scarcity of solos on “Black Radio,” and its focus on songs. “And when we do our hip-hop stuff, it’s a little more actual hip-hop vibe.”

    That’s true, and it has something to do with the art of reverse engineering. Playing “Stakes Is High,” for instance, also means emulating a sample at its core: the syncopated chord sequence from “Swahililand,” a 1974 track by the jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. “It’s truly a postmodern statement, in that Robert’s music is an outgrowth of the music that hip-hop used to sample,” said Eli Wolf, an executive producer of the new album. “And on top of it he’s incorporating elements from the hip-hop of that era.”

    That process plays out with appreciable subtlety on “Black Radio,” which was recorded over four days in a Los Angeles studio, with minimal advance preparation. All the instrumental tracks were recorded live, often in a single take; in most cases the vocalist was there too. “It was like a freeway of artists coming in and out of the studio,” said Ledisi, who recalled seeing Bilal and King, a female R&B vocal trio, when she arrived.

    “It was very, very, very loose,” Mr. Glasper said, “and very jazz in that way.” He noted another, more literal jazzlike touch: his acoustic piano filigree, which runs throughout, as accent and signature. And then of course there’s the agility of his band, with a rapport that points toward jazz even when the music doesn’t.

    We’ll be seeing more along these lines, and not just from Mr. Glasper. Blue Note has committed to releasing “Live Today,” the yearningly melodic debut by Mr. Hodge. Mr. Dave said he had his own solo albums in the works. The suave young singer José James has earned a following by blending jazz, hip-hop and soul. And last year, before he won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, Kris Bowers played on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Watch the Throne.”

    A cynic might characterize this burst of like-minded activity as a function of commerce, and Mr. Glasper wouldn’t necessarily disagree. But he and his band mates, in separate conversations, also kept returning to the idea of honesty.

    “If you’re honest with yourself, your influences will shine through,” he said. “And you’ll write songs that sound like you, and you’ll incorporate things that you actually like, and not feel like you have to follow these certain guidelines.”

    He paused and punctuated the silence with a chuckle. “People always tell me, ‘Oh, man, you’re the future of jazz.’ I’m like: ‘No, I’m now. I’m relevant now.’ ”
  • waterproof
    waterproof Members Posts: 9,412 ✭✭✭✭✭
    [b]Robert Glasper Talks About Making Jazz for a New Generation


    For all of the recent praise he’s been gotten, Robert Glasper hasn’t talked much about where he sees himself in jazz history. The pianist and record producer recently released his fourth studio album, “Black Radio”, featuring the likes of Erykah Badu and Yassin Bey (formerly Mos Def). It’s an unconventional jazz album, and that’s precisely where the 33-year-old Glasper sees his legacy. “I think I’m the dude that’s kind making jazz relevant to younger people,” he says. “I would be the one that’s kinda pushing the envelope further.”

    Throughout his career, that’s meant mixing jazz with hip-hop, a feat that’s proved unsuccessful for many. But Glasper blends genres easily, and in doing so has proven that there’s an eager audience of music fanatics who’ve been waiting for jazz to adapt to their times. And his range goes far beyond just hip-hop. The new project features covers of Sade’s “Cherish the Day” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” - homages to smooth jazz and Seattle grunge that are easier to place for fans who may not be as familiar with jazz’s forebears.

    Glasper spoke with Colorlines.com recently about his new project, his hometown of Houston, and how his mother helped shape his eclectic approach to music.



    There’s a track on your latest album featuring Erykah Badu called “Afro Blue.” It’s a song that’s been around for a while — Santamaria wrote it, Coltrane made it famous, Dianne Reeves, Santana and Herbie Hancock all did it. In many ways you seem to be pulling directly from that history to make a statement about today. Can you talk a little bit about how that song came together and the message you’re trying to make with it?

    When I asked Erykah to do this album, in my mind I’ve always had her doing a jazz record. I still want her to because she’s such a spirit of Billie Holiday naturally, without trying. That’s just how her voice and spirit is that I’ve always heard her doing jazz tunes. When she said OK to this project, I thought it would be dope to mix her with a jazz standard. Also because that’s kinda what this album is. It’s kind of a mixture of the genres. So I definitely wanted to do something that collectively the jazz audience and jazz musicians know, but at the same time use Erykah because she has a whole different fan base.

    So now Afro Blue is known to that fan base as well so it works on both sides. I just heard her singing that song in my mind. It sounds like a song that she would sing, you know? She’s very ‘of the Motherland.’ When you look at her show and what she’s about, the jewelry she wears — there’s a lot of Africa in there. I knew she would enjoy it, especially with the lyrics: “Dream of the land/My soul is from/I hear a hand/Stroke on the drum/Shades of delight/Cocoa hue//Rich as the nigh/Afro blue.” That just sounds totally like her.

    And if you could do an entire jazz album with Erykah Badu, what would that sound like?

    That would be amazing to do a whole record with her like that. And just re-do jazz standards, that would be crazy. I’m still in her ear, I think she wants to possibly do something like that so we’ll definitely see. I’m not sure how it would sound or how it would turn out, but I know it would be great.



    You’ve worked with a range of artists who are sort of at the center of black music — Badu, Bilal, Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), Lupe Fiasco. You’re right there in the center with them. How would you describe the energy that’s associated with making music right now?

    I think people are realizing that they’ve got to move forward and start being honest with themselves as far as the music goes and what their influences are and what they like and incorporating that into what they do. I think the more people are starting to realize that seeing me do it, and seeing the reception I’m getting, I’m really seeing it. Even speaking about my earlier entry, “In My Element”, I had Q-Tip on there, introducing a track “J Dillalude” I got a lot of feedback and great response from the hip- hop audience. So people even then saw that. And I saw certain people just trying to incorporate things, you know, modern things that people of now can understand. So I think there’s a movement of that going on so that’s why I think this record is very much accepted because the timing is right. This kind of movement has been going on for a few years and I think now is just a time to really put it out there. I think the spirit of everybody is really good, people are understanding it, and understand that jazz needs this kind of revival.

    Have you gotten any pushback from jazz traditionalists for the way that you’re trying to adapt this to a younger audience?

    Not yet, not that I’m aware of anyway [laughs]. I’m sure are those people who are doing that, and saying stuff like that, but those are probably the same people who told Miles that. My thing is, you can’t say I don’t know the tradition. Or I don’t respect the music, because you can check out my early albums. You can ask jazz cats on the scene who’ve heard us play, or you can just come to a show and listen, and you’ll hear the tradition in my playing. If they’re mad that I’m doing this, then it’s probably because they can’t do it [laughs]. I’d be mad too.

    Your influences are pretty eclectic. They’ve ranged from Herbie Hancock to Radiohead. Where do your musical tastes come from?

    Everywhere. It’s Herbie, it’s never closing my ears, always keeping my ears open. Not just listening to what people think you should listen to if you want to play jazz music. Because that’s what happens to a lot of jazz cats that get into schools. Schools are very good for some things, they’re great. Without school, I wouldn’t be here right now talking to you. But you’ve got to be careful with how that works because some people will just try to tell you how to be a jazz musician, and this-is-what-you’ve-gotta-listen-to-you-gotta- sound-like-this-kinda-vibe. You always have to keep your ears open to all kinds of music. If you allow yourself to be influenced, then it influences your sound and you become yourself by default, without trying. For me, so many people are influences. Bruce Hornsby is a big influence for me, Billy Joel, Herbie, George Duke, Roy Ayers.

    Do you think that’s part of your generation? Folks having access to all sorts of records and albums and, at a certain point, iPods.

    I’m 33, so when I was coming up I didn’t have YouTube. I didn’t even have CD’s. I didn’t get my first CD ‘till I was like a senior in high school. I had tapes. So it wasn’t that accessible and I lived in Houston, Texas. We didn’t have the biggest jazz stores or even jazz clubs, really. So it really wasn’t that accessible to me. I had to kind of find it because it was interesting to me. But younger people coming up, now you can just listen to anything. Any time, whenever you want. And that’s amazing.


  • waterproof
    waterproof Members Posts: 9,412 ✭✭✭✭✭
    How do you think growing up in Houston shaped the way you listen to music and the way that you approach the process of making it?

    The church was very good. We had a good Gospel church scene and a lot of great Gospel musicians. So I was in the church scene playing and met a lot of great, great musicians I could watch and learn from.

    I also went to a performing arts high school. And there were lots of great musicians who came out of that high school. Beyonce’s one of them, I went to high school with her. A bunch of killer musicians. Kendrick Scott, just a whole lot of great musicians in general. I was always around great musicians who were my age, and that’s not normal for you to be like 15 playing jazz and there are other 15-year-olds playing jazz. There was good competition in the school so it made you better.

    And then my family, just being around my mom and my aunts because they sang all the time. My mom played piano and sang all kinds of music. Really being at home, being in church and being in school is what kind of made me be who I am musically. And being around a lot of open people. My mom was everything, and she made me open as well. That’s why my song selection on my album is so random.

    I know she was one of your earliest musical influences. Is there any piece of advice or any approach to music that she taught you when you were young that you’ve found particularly useful as you’ve gotten older?

    It was more, like, watching her. Because she would perform, and I’d watch her perform, and she would always engage the audience. She taught me that once you engage the audience you can do whatever you want. She taught me how to put the audience in the palm of my hand. That’s why when you see my show, I’m the same of the stage and off the stage. My personality’s the same. So you feel like we’re friends or we’re family while we’re on stage. Once you do that [as an artist], you’re opening a door so you can do anything you want because the audience is right there with you.

    And she was always an advocate for doing a lot of stuff, different musical avenues. She sung country, R&B, jazz, pop, rock, Broadway, she was the music director at church on Sundays. She never stopped or turned her nose up at any kind of music.


  • caddo man
    caddo man Members Posts: 22,476 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I am going to cop this most def.
  • I.B. Blackman
    I.B. Blackman Members Posts: 3,323 ✭✭✭✭✭
    ......Instant Coppage.