<\/p>\n
In the post-EST era, the jazz piano trio seems to be going two ways. <\/span>The European trio seems as influenced by contemporary European classical music as it is by the jazz \u2018traditions\u2019 of America. <\/span>Tord Gustafsen\u2019s trio play music that is as influenced by the folk-music of his native Norway as it is by anything he might have learned from listening to Keith Jarrett or even Cecil Taylor. <\/span>The current crop of conservatoire trained British pianists (Kit Downes, Ivo Neame,Neil Cowley) are as likely to cite Webern as a influence as they are to mention Miles or Bill Evans.<\/p>\n \n \n For the American pianist, the roots are much more likely to be in the gospel\/blues tradition and the currents of contemporary American popular music. <\/span>Robert Glasper is almost an embodiment of that synthesis. <\/span>He is the keyboard player of choice for a range of hip-hop artists from Bilal and Mos Def to Erykah Badu. <\/span>And the opening \u2018track\u2019 of his wonderful recent \u2018Double-booked\u2019 album is the recording of a phone message from Terence Blanchard about a double-booking that has been made for Glasper; <\/span>one booking with his \u2018Experiment\u2019 band by ?uestlove of the Roots, and the other for his piano trio booked by Blanchard. <\/span>That album ranges from a version of Herbie Hancock\u2019s \u2018Butterfly\u2019 using the vocoder that Hancock popularised, through to an almost stride piano version of Monk\u2019s Think of One.<\/p>\n \n \n So a driving rhythmic pulse is never very far from the surface of the music. Glasper is never afraid to repeat a phrase to hold its rhythmic pulse, then move away from it in lyrical bursts. <\/span>His left hand holds the essential beat of the tune and there is that inevitability about his solos that only the best players have. Bassist Derrick Hodge has a more mellifluous approach to the instrument than has sometimes been the case of late; <\/span>the influence of Ron Carter uneclipsed by the tonalities of Jaco Pastorius. His solos are small portraits around the tunes, as he quietly underpins both the piano and at times, the drummer. <\/span>Glasper has often had a penchant for busy drummers and Mark Colenburg is no exception, although he never loses the pulse and the drive of the band is palpable; <\/span>a small pity then that the drums were so closely miked and rather drowned the bass.<\/p>\n \n \n The evening began with Glasper\u2019s own G&B from his In my element<\/em> album and then the Hancock thread began with lovely versions of \u2018I have a dream\u2019 and \u2018Butterfly\u2019 on the electric piano. <\/span>The full set finished with a mash of Radiohead\u2019s \u2018Everything in its Right Place\u2019 and Hancock\u2019s \u2018Maiden Voyage\u2019. <\/span>Glasper has such feel for a tune that these two pieces felt entirely at home in each other\u2019s company. <\/span>Glasper responded to the inevitable encore by eliciting requests from the audience.\u00a0 And when someone jokily shouted ‘Take the A Train’, the trio swung effortlessly into Ellington’s great classic.\u00a0 The ‘real’ encore was Glasper\u2019s own \u2018No Worries\u2019; the title to which he attributed to shouts from a British audience on his first visit here.<\/p>\n \n This was a evening of terrific jazz as contemporary as it gets without sacrificing either the tune or the inner logic of the music. <\/span>Glasper is fast turning himself into an essential player;\u00a0 such a shame that RNCM was only half full!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the post-EST era, the jazz piano trio seems to be going two ways. The European trio seems as influenced by contemporary European classical music as it is by the jazz \u2018traditions\u2019 of America. Tord Gustafsen\u2019s trio play music that is as influenced by the folk-music of his native Norway as it is by anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15,16,283],"tags":[211,217],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n