Robert Glasper
A pianist who, with harmonies learned on the church organ bench in Houston, kept erasing the line between the jazz trio and the hip-hop beat.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Companions ⏳🌊
- FamilyKim Yvette Glasper
His mother, who sang in churches and clubs, opened Glasper's first path into music and was memorialized in 「Tribute」.
- InfluenceHerbie Hancock
Reimagining 「Maiden Voyage」 and 「Butterfly」 again and again, Glasper took Hancock as an elder who bridged jazz and popular music.
- FriendshipBilal
A singer met at the New School — the friend who led Glasper into the world of hip-hop and neo-soul, and a musical partner of more than twenty years.
- InfluenceJ Dilla
Dilla's beats, struck with a twisted pulse, became the wellspring of Glasper's rhythmic sense and were honored in 「J Dillalude」.
- ColleagueTerence Blanchard
A trumpeter in whose band the young Glasper served as a sideman, learning up close how to lead a band.
- ColleagueTerrace Martin
A saxophonist and producer who built R+R=NOW and Dinner Party together with Glasper.
I. Church in Houston · 1978–1996 (age 0–18)
(Houston) He was born in April 1978 in Houston, Texas. His mother, Kim Yvette Glasper, sang and played piano in church, and in the evenings she sang jazz and blues in clubs around town. In interviews Glasper has often named her as his first musical influence. (Church) When she had no one to leave him with, his mother took him along to the clubs and to church alike. Glasper has recalled taking over as church accompanist at around the age of twelve. Gospel accompaniment was something learned by ear rather than from the page. It was there that he learned to sense the moment a sermon was building and shift the harmony to lift it, and to slip fresh chords beneath familiar hymns (reharmonization). The thick, subtly twisted chords that would later define his playing came, he has said many times, from the church of those years. (Arts school) For high school he attended Houston's public arts school, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA). The pianist Jason Moran had passed through a few years earlier, and peers such as the drummer Kendrick Scott and the saxophonist Walter Smith III studied jazz alongside him. In those years he listened without distinction to church music, to jazz, and to the R&B and hip-hop pouring out of the radio. To him these were less separate genres than sounds drifting from the same neighborhood, and that sense would come to underpin all of his music.
II. Two worlds in New York · 1997–2002 (age 19–24)
(The New School) Around 1997 he moved to New York and entered the Jazz and Contemporary Music program at The New School. There he met Bilal, a singer from Philadelphia. Glasper has recalled that the two grew close right from the start of his studies. Their friendship would carry on for more than twenty years, on stage and on record. (Hip-hop) Through Bilal he found his way into New York's hip-hop and neo-soul circles. He worked as a keyboardist with rappers such as Mos Def (today's Yasiin Bey), Talib Kweli and Common, and he is also known to have crossed paths with the Detroit producer J Dilla. Dilla's beats placed the pulse deliberately a little off, giving them a sway like a body rocking to the music. Glasper said he heard in those beats the same thing he heard in a jazz drummer's fingertips. (Sideman) At the same time he kept busy as an accompanist (sideman) in jazz bands. He played on the stages of the trumpeter Terence Blanchard, the bassist Christian McBride, the guitarist Russell Malone and the saxophonist Kenny Garrett, among others. In Blanchard's band especially, he watched up close how to handle original compositions and how to lead a band. One week he would be playing a jazz club, the next a hip-hop venue. He made his living moving between the two worlds in those years, and he has recalled that in neither did he abandon the language of the other.
III. The trio and loss · 2003–2007 (age 25–29)
(Debut) In 2004 he released his first album, “Mood,” on Fresh Sound New Talent, a label based in Barcelona, Spain. In 2005 he signed with Blue Note and put out “Canvas.” It was a piano trio formed with Vicente Archer on bass and Damion Reid on drums. Critics took note of playing that laid a hip-hop sense of rhythm over the idiom of the classic trio. (Mother) In between, in 2004, his mother, Kim Glasper, died. She was the one who had opened his first path into music, taking him with her to church and to the clubs. In February 2006, J Dilla died at thirty-two. In the space of barely two years he had lost the two people closest to him musically. (Tribute) That loss went into his second Blue Note album, “In My Element,” from 2007. “Tribute” carried audio from his mother's funeral, and on “J Dillalude” the trio strung together several of Dilla's beats by hand. The album also included a track layering Herbie Hancock's “Maiden Voyage” with Radiohead's “Everything in Its Right Place.” Facing grief head-on, it gathered the music that had raised him under a single roof.
His Blue Note debut, the album on which the harmonies learned accompanying church services and the hip-hop rhythms absorbed in New York first came together inside an acoustic trio.
- Listen for the passages where Vicente Archer's bass and Damion Reid's drums, rather than keeping an even, steady pulse, chop the beat into small pieces or hold it back slightly, making it sway like a hip-hop beat.
- Glasper likes to repeat a short figure while changing the harmony beneath it bit by bit (reharmonization). The way the same melody brightens and darkens with its chords is the heart of this album.
- Instead of building to a climax through long solos, the music lifts the mood gradually through repetition and subtle variation. The improvisation sounds less like a solo turn than a pattern the three weave together.
- Bilal lends his voice to “Chant” and “I Remember.” Try hearing it not so much as singing but as one more color laid over the piano's harmonies.
Released after he lost his mother and J Dilla, an album in which mourning and a search for the roots of his own music overlap.
- “J Dillalude” is a medley stitching together several of Dilla's beats. In place of a machine looping samples, the drums and bass repeat the same short patterns by hand, letting you hear what a loop played by people feels like.
- Herbie Hancock's “Maiden Voyage” is a piece that lingers at length over a few scales rather than following a fixed chord progression (modal jazz). Listen for the moment Radiohead's melody rises over those spacious harmonies.
- In “Tribute,” as audio from the funeral plays, the piano supports it with chords that seem to follow the inflections of speech. It sounds as though his years of accompanying sermons in church carried straight over.
IV. Two bookings · 2008–2011 (age 30–33)
(Experiment) Apart from the trio, he formed a band built around electric instruments, the Robert Glasper Experiment. Its members were Casey Benjamin on saxophone and vocoder, Derrick Hodge on bass and Chris Dave on drums. Chris Dave, a fellow Houstonian, had a gift for recreating by hand the lopsided pulse of hip-hop beats. Electric keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes took center stage in place of the acoustic piano, and the sway of the whole band (groove) came before solos. (Duality) True to its title, the 2009 album “Double-Booked” put two bands on one record. In the first half the acoustic trio played pieces such as Thelonious Monk's “Think of One,” and in the second half the Experiment reinterpreted Herbie Hancock's “Butterfly,” among others. Like a musician who has booked two gigs on the same evening, he used the very form of the album to show that he could not choose between the jazz club and the hip-hop stage. (Turning point) With this album his center of gravity shifted toward the Experiment. In interviews he often voiced frustration that jazz was drifting away from contemporary audiences and being treated like a museum relic. The path he chose in answer was to rewrite jazz in the language of the music of his own generation, namely R&B and hip-hop.
Its very structure, the acoustic trio up front and the Experiment at the back, carries over his life of moving between two worlds.
- Hear the two halves back to back and the contrast is vivid: the ring of the acoustic piano gives way to the round, liquid sound of the Fender Rhodes electric keyboard. Compare how the same player speaks in a different voice depending on the instrument.
- On the trio side, Monk's “Think of One” wraps Monk's characteristically halting melody in Glasper's soft harmonies.
- On the Experiment side, Chris Dave's drums deliberately drag and push the beat off-kilter, creating a sway (groove) like Dilla's beats. The texture of this rhythm, more than any solo, is the star.
- Casey Benjamin's vocoder turns the human voice into something like electronic sound as it sings the melody. That singular timbre, somewhere between saxophone and voice, became the hallmark of the Experiment's sound.
V. Black Radio · 2012–2016 (age 34–38)
(Black Radio) In 2012 the Experiment released “Black Radio.” Voices from R&B and hip-hop, among them Erykah Badu, Lalah Hathaway, Bilal, Yasiin Bey, Meshell Ndegeocello and Ledisi, stepped in as guests track by track. “Afro Blue,” widely known through John Coltrane's recording, sat side by side on one album with Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The album won the Grammy for Best R&B Album, and a pianist on a jazz label taking an R&B category made headlines. (Expansion) On “Black Radio 2” the following year, Norah Jones appeared on “Let It Ride.” Stevie Wonder's “Jesus Children,” featuring Lalah Hathaway and the actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, won the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance. In 2015 he played keyboards on the sessions for Kendrick Lamar's “To Pimp a Butterfly.” (Miles) That same year he reunited with original members Vicente Archer and Damion Reid to record “Covered.” He went on to score “Miles Ahead,” the Miles Davis biopic that Don Cheadle directed and starred in, and in 2016 he released “Everything's Beautiful,” made with a range of singers from Miles's unreleased recordings. He named Miles, who had changed jazz by embracing the music of his time, as the precedent for what he himself was trying to do.
When this album, on which a jazz pianist gathered the voices of R&B and hip-hop, took a Grammy in the R&B field, his long double life became an answer in the shape of a genre.
- “Afro Blue,” which follows the intro, is a tune Coltrane loved to play in the 1960s. Set against Coltrane's ferocious playing, listen to Erykah Badu's delivery, low and unhurried, leaning slightly behind the beat.
- The guest singers change from track to track, but rather than long solos the band supports the songs with recurring keyboard chords and drum patterns. It is an album on which a jazz band chose restraint, the virtue of R&B accompaniment.
- What lives on the album is less a pieced-together precision than the loose breath of musicians finding each other as they play. Less a pieced-together precision than the loose breath of musicians finding each other as they play.
- In the closing “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Casey Benjamin's vocoder turns Nirvana's raw rock melody into a dreamlike ballad. Listen with the original in mind, and the boldness of the arrangement comes into sharper view.
After the success of Black Radio, he returned to his original trio for an album that rewrites contemporary pop and R&B in the language of the piano trio.
- It was recorded live at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. The clean sound of the studio and the immediacy of a live show sit side by side, and the brief remarks and applause between songs were left in.
- Songs such as Radiohead's “Reckoner” and Joni Mitchell's “Barangrill” sit alongside the jazz standard “Stella by Starlight.” It becomes clear that for Glasper, pop songs and standards alike are raw material for improvisation.
- Reunited after years apart, Archer and Reid trade beats with far more ease than in the Canvas days (interplay). Listen for the moments when the drums answer a short piano figure on the instant.
- In Kendrick Lamar's “I'm Dying of Thirst,” children call out, one after another, the names of Black people killed by police violence. The piano does not cover their voices but quietly holds them up, creating the heaviest moment on the album.
VI. Black Radio today · 2017–2026 (age 39–48)
(Emmy) In 2017, “Letter to the Free,” featured in Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th, won him an Emmy alongside Common and Karriem Riggins. The film examined the American prison system and race. In interview after interview he has said that, as a Black musician, he will not turn away from social issues. (Collaboration) In 2018 he formed R+R=NOW with Terrace Martin, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Derrick Hodge, Taylor McFerrin and Justin Tyson, releasing Collagically Speaking. In 2020 he put together Dinner Party with Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington and the producer 9th Wonder. His long run of shows (a residency) at New York's Blue Note club, stretching across nearly the whole of each October, has come to be called Robtober after him. (Black Radio III) Black Radio III, from 2022, was made amid the pandemic and the protests against racism of 2020. He said he wanted to capture the anger and exhaustion of that time, and the strength to endure. Q-Tip, Esperanza Spalding, H.E.R., Gregory Porter, Lalah Hathaway and others took part, and the album again won the Grammy for best R&B album. In 2024, Casey Benjamin, who had stood beside him since the Experiment days, passed away. Into the mid-2020s he continues to move between the piano trio, R&B and hip-hop.
Made while passing through a time of pandemic and protests against racism, this album carries the Black Radio series further still, into a voice addressed to society.
- In “Why We Speak,” featuring Q-Tip and Esperanza Spalding, the speaking rhythm of rap alternates with Spalding's singing. It is a moment when two musicians whose names run through the series meet in a single song.
- “Better Than I Imagined,” featuring H.E.R. and Meshell Ndegeocello, is a song in which two voices trade lines over a slow tempo, as if wrapping around each other. The keys lay down long, sustained chords, leaving space open.
- In a reimagining of Tears for Fears' “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” a 1980s pop melody is reborn through Lalah Hathaway's deep voice and an unhurried groove.
- The guests change from track to track, but running through the whole album is a feeling closer to the strength to endure than to anger. It is worth listening with his words in mind — that he was trying to take down the sound of the times.
Lesser-known stories
His first album is usually remembered as Canvas on Blue Note, but his actual debut was Mood, released in 2004 on Fresh Sound New Talent, a label based in Barcelona, Spain. The label was known for giving young New York jazz players their first chance to record. His success after Blue Note was so great that this starting point on a small European label often survives only as a footnote in his discography. He is, rare for a jazz pianist, an Emmy winner. He shared the award with Common and Karriem Riggins for “Letter to the Free,” the closing song of the 2017 documentary 13th. Because the film and the rapper Common stood in front, the fact that Glasper was deeply involved in writing and performing the song is little known even among jazz fans. Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly is counted among the landmark albums of hip-hop history, and Glasper played keyboards on its sessions, alongside Los Angeles jazz musicians such as Terrace Martin and Kamasi Washington. On a rapper's album, an accompanist's name is easily buried deep in the credits, so the fact that his hands touched the album's jazz coloring usually goes unnoticed.
Glossary notes 📚🔎
Piano trio
(Etymology) Trio comes from the Italian tre, meaning “three,” and refers to an ensemble of three players performing together. (In jazz) In jazz it usually means a band made up of three instruments: piano, bass and drums. The piano takes the melody and harmony, the bass supplies the roots of the chords and the beat from below, and the drums shape the texture of the rhythm. The heart of it is that the three listen to one another and respond on the spot. Think of three people practicing volleyball together. Whoever receives the ball, the other two have to watch it and decide their next move at once to keep the rally going.
Reharmonization
(Etymology) The English word reharmonization means to harmonize (harmonization) again (re). (In jazz) It is the practice of leaving a familiar melody as it is while replacing the harmony laid beneath it. The same melody can sound bright, lonely or strange once the chords change. It is a bit like making the same fried rice with oyster sauce or curry powder instead of soy sauce: the rice and ingredients are the same, but the flavor is entirely different. Glasper has said he learned this skill accompanying hymns in church.
Groove
(Etymology) Groove originally meant the channel cut into a vinyl record. Just as the needle glides along that channel, the word came to describe the feeling of music carrying the body along naturally. (In jazz) It is the swaying pulse the rhythm instruments create together, the kind that makes the body move on its own. It does not come from keeping perfect time; it arises when the drums and bass lock together while pushing or pulling the beat ever so slightly. Think of a group jumping rope. When the two people turning the rope keep perfect time with each other, the one jumping in falls into the rhythm without trying — and that feeling settling into the body is groove. (Elsewhere) In everyday English, in the groove can also mean being so practiced at something that it flows easily.
Vocoder
(Etymology) A blend of voice and coder, it was originally a communications device built to convert the voice into electrical signals for transmission. (In jazz) It is a device that blends the human voice with the sound of a synthesizer, producing a timbre that seems both to speak and to be a machine singing. Casey Benjamin of the Experiment sang through a vocoder, giving the band its distinctive sound. If you have ever talked through a robot-voice filter on a smartphone app, the principle is similar. The difference is that a vocoder takes its pitches from a keyboard, turning that voice into song.
Neo-soul
(Etymology) Neo comes from the Greek word for “new.” The term means new soul music. (In jazz) It is a current in Black popular music that emerged in the late 1990s, blending the warm feeling of 1960s and '70s soul with jazz harmony and hip-hop rhythm. Singers such as Erykah Badu and Bilal are its leading figures, and Glasper's music is deeply bound up with it. It is like taking an old song your grandmother loved and singing it again over the kind of beat your friends like today. The old flavor survives, but the bowl is a new one.
Sideman
(In jazz) A sideman is not the leader of a band under his own name but an accompanist who joins another leader's band to play. Young jazz musicians usually build experience and connections working as sidemen for well-known leaders before forming bands of their own. Glasper, too, worked as a sideman in the bands of Terence Blanchard, Christian McBride and others. It is like gaining stage experience in a school play in a supporting role, and later going on to direct.
Residency
(Etymology) The English word residency means dwelling or staying. It comes from the idea of staying in one place to work. (In jazz) It refers to a performer playing the same club for several days, several weeks, or as long as a month in a row. Because each night they can invite different colleagues and play different tunes, audiences get to see many faces of the same musician. Robtober, which Glasper holds every October at New York's Blue Note, is one example. Picture a class that, during a school festival, opens a booth in the same classroom every day with a different theme. (Elsewhere) In medicine it means residency, the training period of a resident physician, and in the art world it refers to a program in which an artist stays at an institution to make work.