“Real music is crash protected”
(from the liner notes of Black Radio)
There are albums that you sift through and cherry pick songs from and there are those that you leave on repeat and listen to completely. The Robert Glasper Experiment’s Black Radio is, without question, the evolution of great urban alternative music. Honestly, I would rather not categorize this effort since it truly exists in multiple genres. Glasper and this versatile band are exactly what J Dilla would sound like if he was a jazz artist rather than a hip hop producer. The result is a jazz effort that could easily be played on mainstream radio, featuring a timeless sound certain to seduce even the most casual music listener.
The Robert Glasper Experiment w/ Robert Glasper on far right
While listening to this album, it is quite clear that J Dilla has had a major influence on the sound that Glasper ( a Grammy nominated jazz pianist and band leader) was aiming for. The use of Glasper’s smooth Rhodes coupled with occasional vocoder efforts from Casey Benjamin (flautist and sax player) sounds, at times, like the background loops from some of Dilla’s funky and soulful instrumental albums — ones that fans often wish had made it into a full song. Once that nostalgia is done, Glasper and the band still manage to own every song .
It is almost as if Black Radio is a neo-Soulquarian effort, boasting Dilla’s sound with standout efforts from Yasiin Bey and Erykah Badu. Glasper’s rendition of the Afro-Cuban standard “Afro Blue” with Erykah Badu and the near freestyle from Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) on “Black Radio” are far from the album’s best. Still, both tracks are an excellent representation of the album as a whole.
Though “Afro Blue” isn’t as popular of a song as some of the other remakes on the album, it manages to have structure and a clear design. From verse to chorus, the song may seem a bit repetitive, but it is garnished by superb skill and interpretation that can only come from chemistry amongst the players and skill from the band leader. Here, the Experiment weaves a flavor that is all their own and founded upon great jazz. In a way, the format of this song sounds a bit more rehearsed (‘commercial’ if you will), as if this was a planned single for radio play.
The album’s title track is a bit more of the ‘experiment’ that the group’s name suggests. “Black Radio” almost comes off as a freestyle jam session that gelled on the first take. With Yasiin Bey being a jazz lover himself, he’s no stranger to improv having worked with the likes of The Roots. Yasiin expertly blends his vocal talents with his skills on the mic to complement the various changes in tempo and direction that Glasper’s in-sync crew take him.
In a way, each of the tracks have less of a choreographed blueprint for each player to follow and more of a generic formula that each musician involved improvises around. From the bass to the drums to the keys to the flute to the vocalists — each offering finds each dimension of the song wandering, adding unique flavor, and experimenting in skillful manner. Rarely is the experiment over the top or exaggerated so as to take away from the mood of the song.
Oddly enough, for me the most memorable aspect of this album isn’t the different featured artists or even the piano and Fender Rhodes offerings of the band leader. Instead, it’s the amazing percussion work by band member Chris Dave. Throughout each track, he manages to embody the experiment by holding true to urban or hip hop nature of the group’s jazz fusion. Nowhere is this more clear than the stunning recreation of the Nirvana hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that the album ends on. At first listen I had a hard time getting over the bass kicks that fire in machine gun style to begin the song. As it progressed, Chris Dave manages to effortlessly weave various tempos and moods, accompanied by Mint Condition’s multi-talented frontman Stokley adding a bit of percussion to the mix as well. With Casey Benjamin leading the way with his vocoder rendition of Kurt Cobain, the entire group manages to pull together a hypnotizing remake that smooths out to a Lalah Hathaway freestyle of sorts at the end. While you probably won’t find many rock fans choosing this version over the original, it just may find jazz and soul fans exploring a bit of Nirvana in sheer curiosity. This remake is what any jazz fan could and should ever want in a jazz recreation of a song of ANY sort.
The same could be said of their epic recreation of the Sade hit “Cherish The Day” featuring Lalah Hathaway. In a sense, at first listen, the song starts off fairly close to the original. Then, in true jazz-great form, the group manages to vault into another amazing direction off the lead of Lalah’s truly unique voice. Her ability to channel that uncanny medium between her father’s legendary voice and the likes of Cassandra Wilson places her every effort on this album in a class all its own. Showing off her stunning chemistry with RGE (Robert Glasper Experiment), this song stands out as proof of their expertise and the allure this project has from start to finish.
While Black Radio features a number of vocalists such as Musiq, Erykah Badu, Chrisette Michele, Lalah Hathaway, Yasiin Bey, and Bilal, this entire effort manages to carve out a unique style and soul that binds the whole effort together. An almost seamless program, Glasper’s smooth and soulful keys provide the mood and the non-cookie cutter voice that will cement this album in any music lover’s library. Jazz aficionados and soul hipsters should waste little time in making this a staple in their playlists. Once again, mainstream and jazz can come together in a way that both can enjoy.
Black Radio will be released on February 28th, 2012 via Blue Note Records. For a limited time, you can go and preview the album on NPR.
