
By Danny R. Johnson – Jazz and Pop Music Critic
New York, NY – Five-time Grammy-winning artist with twelve nominations across eleven categories, Robert Glasper, is amid an October residency at the Blue Note New York.
I was fortunate to catch up with him during his October 13 show featuring the illustrious vocalist, Andra Day. By the time Glasper wraps up his October gigs at Blue Note at the end of October, not only would he have paid tribute to the late Casey Benjamin and Wayne Shorter, he will have covered all the jazz and New Age idioms he has become famous for with artists such as Raye, Questlove, Common, The Philharmonik, Andra Day, Marsha Ambrosius, Justin Tyson, Burniss Travis, Samora Pinderhughes, Isaiah Sharkey, DJ Jahi Sundance, Doobie Powell, Little Brother, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, Mark Turner, Chris Dave, Derrick Hodge, Freelance, Pedrito Martinez, and Stokley.
Glasper is among a growing number of artists who cover a massive amount of musical territory and share a willingness to undermine conventional notions of what constitutes jazz and a determination to shake up the world of R&B and hip-hop with ingredients drawn from African American experts in improvisation of the preceding two generations. This represents not so much a new jazz style, although it can be viewed from that prism, rather an insurgency designed to redefine the term of engagement for all commercial music in the current arena.
Few artists have been more outspoken in promoting this cross-genre dialogue than pianist and Emmy-award-winning musical extraordinaire Glasper. “You’re gonna kill the music if you only support people who are dead,” he announced in a 2018 Instagram video message targeted at the so-called jazz police, the traditionalists in the idiom who, in his view, do not recognize that the music “always changes. It keeps moving, and it’s never the same.” Around the same time, Glasper offered an even more strident critique of jazz culture in an interview with NPR. “I try to incorporate more genres of music,” he explained. Then added: “Because jazz is not a thriving genre of music, you know. There are ten jazz radio stations in the world, and they all played music before 1970, so nothing connects young people to music. Nothing connecting them.”
The facts may seem to be exaggerated. Hundreds of radio stations play jazz via traditional airwaves, satellite broadcasting, online streaming, and countless other playlists, platforms, and podcasts supporting the 24-7 genre. Many of them are found on HBCU college campuses like Howard University, Washington, DC, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD, and Jackson State University, Jackson, MS. All these venues draw on the enthusiasm of the young listeners Glasper has accused of abandoning the idiom.
However, few can dispute his view that vibrant art forms do not stay the same decade after decade. If you are fortunate to attend one of Glasper’s gigs at Blue Note, it is worth noting that Glasper’s vigorous advocacy of new sound is deeply rooted in the jazz tradition.

Glasper’s most persuasive advocacy comes via his performances rather than his pronouncements. Born in Houston in 1978, Glasper started as a champion of the same straight-ahead jazz style he later called into question. On his first album for the Blue Note label, CANVAS (2005), he operated entirely within the confines of the post-bop acoustic jazz piano idiom, highlighting a rich harmonic palette and delicate touch of the instrument. However, in subsequent projects, Glasper would try his hand at every conceivable method of updating the jazz tradition or moving outside its purview.
On his follow-up album, IN MY ELEMENT (2007), he began to incorporate, in small doses, danceable beats and samples and served up an impressive mash-up of Herbie Hancock’s jazz composition, MAIDEN VOYAGE with EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE by the rock band Radiohead. But this was merely the prelude for the next decade’s wide-ranging efforts. During this period, Glasper expanded his arsenal with electric keyboards and other plugged-in instruments. He would increasingly rely on vocalists, rappers, laptop effects, and other ingredients drawn from the dominant commercial genres.
To illustrate Glasper’s arrangements in coordinating an old-school reharmonization and a new school processed vocal, the Andra Day performance is a perfect example. This talented and seasoned Grammy-winning songstress, composer, and actress teamed up with an evolutionary musical visionist and delivered a show masterpiece. Andra Day is a soul, gospel, R&B, groove, and jazz feast. Her Blue Note performance with Glasper bloomed with songs about searching, trying times, buoyant love, deep reflection, and social action. Day sings with a voice of authority, and the takeaway from her performance is honesty. She has a vibrant voice which is amazingly compelling and dynamic.
If you listen closely, you can see parallels between Nancy Wilson and Day’s interpretation of the ballads she performed. Day is an introspective singer; she is the kind of inwardly directed vocalist who implores the audience to come to her, to find her where she is.
Robert Glasper is fully aware of the difficulty in categorization, which is in many ways an inescapable aspect of jazz in the twenty-first century, and he would hardly be the first artist to push the music into new territories only to find others arguing over how to define their boundary lines.