Robert Glasper In My Element

Four months after winning his second Grammy Award in the R&B category for Black Radio 2, pianist Robert Glasper re-assembles the acoustic jazz trio that played on his first two Blue Note recordings…

Robert Glasper is a jazz pianist with a knack for mellow, harmonically complex compositions that also reveal a subtle hip-hop influence. Since debuting as a leader during the mid-2000s, the Houston native has been crucial to the enduring relevance of Blue Note Records, blurring genre distinctions and regularly topping Billboard's Jazz Albums chart with highly collaborative recordings such as the Grammy-winning Black Radio (2011) and Black Radio 2 (2013), as well as ArtScience (2016), all credited to the Robert Glasper Experiment. In addition to guiding projects such as the soundtrack for Miles Ahead (another Grammy winner) and R+R=Now's Collagically Speaking, Glasper has contributed to dozens of other albums, most notably Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. The mixtape Fuck Yo Feelings (2019) best exemplifies Glasper's obstinate resistance to expectations and devotion to spontaneous interplay.

Robert Glasper is a man of many talents. Certainly, he's both an inarguably accomplished jazz pianist and a first-rate composer. But what Glasper does best is pick drummers. With 2007's In My Element, he provided Damion Reid with a platform to record nothing less than the drum performance of the year. For this album, Glasper teams up with Chris Dave, and the results are astonishing. It's a concept album, sort of. The first half features the Trio (Glasper, Dave, and bassist Vicente Archer) on a handful of originals and a take on Thelonius Monk's "Think of One." Throughout, the piano and drums intertwine with a complex integrity that sounds deceptively effortless. Then comes the Experiment: Derrick Hodge replaces Archer with an electric bass; Casey Benjamin adds saxes and vocoder; Bilal and Mos Def drop in for vocal cameos. The Experiment's five tracks differ in texture and depth from the Trio's set, but the adventurousness of the performances and the gorgeous lyricism of Dave's drumming fuse the album's halves into a single musical statement that makes for the year's best jazz album so far.

Black Radio 2 is the sixth studio album by American jazz pianist and R&B producer Robert Glasper (and the second with his Robert Glasper Experiment band), released on October 29, 2013 by Blue Note Records. It is the follow-up to the Grammy Award winner Black Radio released in 2012. and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for the album cut "Jesus Children of America" featuring Lalah Hathaway and Malcolm-Jamal Warner in 2015.

Robert Glasper's love for the music of his upbringing is deep. The sounds of hip hop, R&B, and urban soul music are intrinsically linked to a brilliant young jazz pianist who has gigged with jazz icons, headlined his own bands, and released a number of noteworthy recordings, including 2007's In My Element (Bluenote) and 2009's Double Booked (EMI). His music has borne the fruits of this passion; he's as comfortable with "J Dilla" as he is with John Coltrane. Some have questioned whether Glasper is abandoning his jazz roots and selling out to popular music.

À l’instar des coffrets Nova, TSF, sa filiale jazz, propose un ensemble de 10 CD classés chronologiquement de 1999 à 2008. Il s’agit de représenter la « playlist » de la radio jazz, dernier enfant de la galaxie Frank Ténot.
Cette playlist fait la part belle aux musiciens français et on s’en réjouit.