Best of Both Worlds

“Jazz people,” Robert Glasper muses, settling back in his black T-shirt emblazoned with the opening lines from A Tribe Called Quest’s magnum opus The Low End Theory, “we have such a snooty vibe sometimes.” Which is funny, because while undeniably jazz he is, with his jovial manner, deep-bellied laugh, and inclusive approach to music, snooty is something he unquestionably ain’t.

By wielding his ten fingers against eighty-eight keys, Glasper has diligently been working against the grind asserting that jazz has become a fossilized genre. The thirty-two-year-old Houston native’s deft natural ability (he can count how many formal piano lessons he’s had in his lifetime) sees him conversant in both hip-hop as well as jazz, fluidly switching between the two in a way that seems inherently organic. “I think if everybody tried, everyone could be double in something,” Glasper says. “I don’t think people are born just to play jazz only, period.” The man is just as comfortable acting as Mos Def’s music director or going on tour with Maxwell as he is playing jazz to pure jazz heads. It’s this versatility that has helped to open the aforementioned genre up to new and previously untouched ears.

“We want to keep jazz alive, so we gotta make it accessible to young people,” Glasper says. “It’s very important to me to do that, to reach young people, reach a young audience. And make jazz hip and young again, because people look at it like it’s in a museum.”

This objective shines through in Glasper’s latest endeavor and third album for Blue Note, Double-Booked. Sliced into the two halves of his musical life, the release showcases both the pianist’s jazz group, the Robert Glasper Trio, as well as his electric, experimental, and hip-hop oriented Robert Glasper Experiment. More traditionally jazz-defined tracks like “Yes I’m Country (and That’s OK)” and “59 South” act as rolling tributes to his home state of Texas, where he grew up with his mother–a pianist, singer, and music director of her church—on a diet of gospel and jazz. Alongside these sit Experiment cuts (including two tracks featuring his old schoolmate and vocalist Bilal), over which Glasper was strategic, waiting to wade a few albums deep before unveiling them. “I didn’t want to misrepresent myself—let’s face it, I’m young and I’m black. So [chuckles] if I did do hip-hop too soon, a lot of people will peg you as, ‘Oh, he’s a hip-hop pianist, he’s not really a jazz trio player.’ ”

The jazz/hip-hop splice also happens on Double-Booked, as it did on his last (2007’s In My Element); Glasper applying the mix to a vocoder-rich Herbie Hancock “Butterflies” and the shuffling beat of his late friend Jay Dee’s “Fuck the Police.” It’s these kinds of reference points that work so successfully at keeping Glasper’s brand of jazz relevant.

It seems apt then that he chose to wear a T-shirt bearing Q-Tip’s famous words: “You could find the Abstract listening to hip-hop / My pops used to say it reminded him of bebop.” Glasper smiles, then says, “I just want to play music of my generation.”