tue 12/11/2024

CD: Robert Glasper Experiment - Black Radio | reviews, news & interviews

CD: Robert Glasper Experiment - Black Radio

CD: Robert Glasper Experiment - Black Radio

With his fourth album for Blue Note, the US pianist may have produced a crossover smash

Exploring the art of the song: the Robert Glasper Experiment

Where the creative interconnections between hip hop, jazz and soul are concerned, Robert Glasper proves himself a master on Black Radio. Featuring an impressive roll call of guest singers and rappers, the pianist has finally made the album which brings together all of his musical predilections into a single whole, and the results are outstanding.

With three Blue Note albums in the bag - Canvas (2005), In My Element (2007) and the Grammy-nominated Double Booked (2009) - the pianist clearly feels he's demonstrated his bona fide jazz chops, and devotes this first full-length album from his Experiment project to the art of the song, rather than the solo.

The Glasper aesthetic is clearly laid out on Mongo Santamaria's classic “Afro Blue”. Ironing out the song's characteristic cross-rhythms into a ridiculously smooth 4/4 groove (take a bow, bassist Derrick Hodge and drummer Chris Dave), the call-and-response exchanges between vocalist Erykah Badu and flautist Casey Benjamin possess a hypnotic beauty. Glasper's understated piano filigree provides the proverbial icing.

A remarkable reimagining of Sade's “Cherish the Day” features the all-enveloping vocals of Lalah Hathaway and a bass line that's so far off the stave it's felt more as subliminal presence than pitch, the whole bathed in a kind of ambient glow. “Consequence of Jealousy” sees the unruffled surfaces of Meshell Ndegeocello's light-as-air vocal occasionally threatened by turntablist interjections, while the Afrobeat twist given to “Why Do We Try”, sung by Mint Condition's Stokley Williams, is another highlight in an album that's full of them.

A reharmonised and very free, almost jam band treatment of Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit” provides the dramatic sign-off, with Benjamin's vocodered vocal riding out on an ecstatic wave of intensity, before the energy dissipates entirely in a blissed out, half-time coda. It's an imaginative tour de force.

Watch a clip about the making of Black Radio:

Add comment

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters

 

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.