A&E
Glasper brings all-age crowd for new jazz sound
By Lucas Phillips ’16
February 25, 2016
For those of us that regularly attend Wellin Hall concerts, it’s basically a fact of life that the median age of the audience is advanced enough to qualify for medicare. That wasn’t the case this past Saturday when pianist Robert Glasper’s trio brought his hip-hop-infused brand of jazz to the stage.
Glasper came onto the scene through while at New York City’s New School, touring with bassist Christian McBride, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, guitarist Russell Malone and others. He has made a name for himself for bringing hip-hip influences into the jazz genre. In 2012 his album Black Radio won a Grammy for Best R&B album, and projected the pianist into prominence in the contemporary r&b, hip-hop and jazz worlds.
Most of the night’s tunes were drawn from Glasper’s most recent recording, Covered (2015), his first trio album since his 2007 In My Element. The set opened with a song intended for the album but not released—Prince’s 1987 single “Sign o’ the Times.” The sound was awful—the bass too boomy to be distinguishable, the piano sounding more electric than acoustic through several mics—which belied the crisp, dry approach from the bass (Vincente Archer) and drum (Damion Reid) chairs. The tune was perfect for the trio’s new approach with Archer locking down the groove with the song’s original bassline and Reid showcasing his electronic-influenced 16th subdivide feel. Glasper moved from the song’s minimalist melody into a solo which mostly just added texture to the groove. If one had gone in expecting swing, this was the time to drop one’s expectations for what a jazz trio sounds like.
The majority of the songs on the night, as on the album, were covers, and on the second song, Glasper paid tribute to the legendary Herbie Hancock with the latter’s “Tell Me a Bedtime Story” (1969). The lush melody took well to Glasper’s incredibly sensitive touch, and the drum felt like it picked up where Herbie’s drummer left off, eschewing all last touches of swing in another gem of metrical precision.
Reid’s approach has advanced considerably with Glasper since his introduction of the feel on “F.T.B.” from In My Element. His solo on the Hancock tune used almost exclusively skins, showing off the technical extremes of subdivision that his comp had been hinting at. The song seemed to end with an unexpected unison in the drum solo, but picked back up after applause. The band then stopped again, waiting for Glasper to keep playing on after the end of a phrase. He looked at them in mock confusion, exchanging gestures back and forth for comic effect. This began a joke that was going to last the whole show. ‘Am I supposed to be playing?’ Glasper seemed to ask. ‘Are you sure? What, piano? Okay, then.’
He then launched into a solo piano piece. Glasper showed his unbelievable chops, imitating first one style then another—Oscar Pettiford, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Herbie Hancock—freely weaving in quotes from all genres of music. After a kaleidoscope of textures, Glasper settled into the jazz standard “Someday My Prince Will Come.” He hit a note that was unusually resonant and stopped, playing only octaves of the note to get the ring-back from the room. He turned to the audience with a look which said, “You hear that?” before plunging back into his improvisation.
The pianist’s rapport with the audience was built on his casual attitude onstage and goofy jokes, which got the rest of the trio to laugh, too. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and he sometimes pulled out his cellphone while playing (to set up recorded audio, as it later turned out). One could see his young son dancing just offstage. It put the audience at ease and made possible a special moment later in the set. Reading his audience, Glasper threw in a quote from Kirk Franklin’s gospel hit, “The Reason Why I Sing.” Audience members began singing along and Glasper with them. It was a wonderful moment.
The band featured one more jazz standard, “Stella By Starlight,” which they recorded for Covered. The lighter texture finally allowed Archer to become discernable, though he didn’t do much with the opportunity. The song is worth mentioning because it was a chance to see Reid’s mind-blowing brushwork. It was a welcome change in texture on a night marked by stylistic uniformity.
Once the band hit their hip-hop jazz idiom, they stuck with it. The drum approach, while initially exciting, eventually wore off its surprise factor and it became hard to distinguish one song to the next. A low point in the night was Reid’s second drum solo, which occurred outside of the context of a song and sounded virtually identical to his first solo, conveying no more than his chops.
Glasper gave almost no room to the rest of the group to speak. Archer took only one solo on the night, and even then scarcely left the low register where he’d been discretely playing as little as possible. As in Reid’s second solo, Archer’s felt a bit more like a show of technique—certainly no shortage of it—than an artistic statement. It says something that for at least half of the encore, Archer and Reid spent their time waiting at their instruments while Glasper played and made jokes. In fact, the performance felt like a Robert Glasper Experiment concert, just without any of the other features soloists those usually entail.
In short, Glasper hogged all the space. His command of the piano was daunting and his touch hauntingly beautiful, even with bad-quality mic’ing. The highlight of the night was definitely Glasper’s performance of “Levels.” He has a special way of playing ballads, and this one played to all his strengths. It’s also, incidentally, my favorite track from Covered.
But I couldn’t help but feel that Glasper failed to use all the resources of his trio. He failed to let them make use of his technique of shifting textures, of moving styles, and following his wandering, curious virtuosity. I think it was a missed opportunity.
Still, no one plays this evolving form of jazz better than Glasper and his bandmates. The concert drew an unusually big and age-diverse crowd, and went a long way in showing how alive and dynamic the genre of jazz is today. It’s surprising to cap off a review this way, but I must say: Despite moments of undeniable monotony, it was a brilliant performance.