An Evening with the Robert Glasper Trio

Overview

Glasper's earliest musical influence was his mother, Kim Yvette Glasper, who sang jazz and blues professionally. She took him with her to club dates rather than leave her son with babysitters. She also performed in church where the young Glasper began playing piano, and performed during services at three churches: Baptist, Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist. Glasper has said that he first developed his sound in church, where he learned his own way to hear harmony, and was inspired to mix church and gospel harmonies with jazz harmonies.

Glasper attended Elkins High School in Sugarland, Texas and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and went on to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. At the New School, Glasper met neo-soul singer Bilal Oliver. They began performing and recording together, which led to associations with a variety of hip-hop and R&B artists parallel to Glasper's emerging jazz career. He has worked with Bilal and Mos Def as musical director, Q-Tip (The Renaissance), Kanye West (Late Registration), Meshell Ndegeocello (The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams), J Dilla, Erykah Badu, Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Common, Slum Village and Maxwell, with whom he toured extensively on 2009’s BLACKsummers'night tour.

Glasper's first album, Mood, was released by Fresh Sound New Talent in 2004, after the pianist's stints playing in bands with guitarists Russell Malone and Mark Whitfield, bassist Christian McBride, and trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Roy Hargrove. The album features six original compositions by Glasper alongside versions of "Blue Skies", "Alone Together", and Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage", featuring guest vocalist Bilal. Glasper has said that his arrangement of the Hancock tune was inspired by the Radiohead song "Everything in Its Right Place".

Blue Note Records released Canvas, Glasper's major-label debut, in 2005. The album features nine original songs and a version of Hancock’s "Riot". Glasper plays the Fender Rhodes on three tracks, and Bilal sings on two. In My Element, released in 2006, includes songs written in honor of Glasper's mother ("Tribute") and hip-hop producer J Dilla ("J Dillalude"). The pianist also revisits Hancock's "Maiden Voyage", which segues into a version of "Everything in Its Right Place", and quotes Duke Ellington’s "Fleurette Africaine".

Glasper's 2009 album Double-Booked is divided between songs performed by Glasper in an acoustic piano trio and funk-influenced tracks played on electric instruments, such as the Fender Rhodes electric piano and the vocoder (used on a version of Hancock's "Butterfly"). The album features voice mail recordings from Blanchard and Roots drummer Questlove, and guest vocals and spoken word appearances by Bilal and Mos Def. Bilal received a 2010 Grammy Award nomination for Best Urban/Alternative Performance for the track "All Matter". In 2013, he won a Grammy for Best R&B Album, Black Radio.

Glasper has performed at jazz festivals throughout the world, and his trio performed at the 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival as part of Blue Note's "Somethin' Else" jazz tent. In addition to his working trio (Chris Dave, drums; Vicente Archer, bass), he also leads the Robert Glasper Experiment (Derrick Hodge, Mark Colenburg, and Casey Benjamin), in which he explores fusions of jazz and hip hop.

The Robert Glasper Trio is set to release another album at the top of 2015.