Review:

on 2012-03-01 Carlita Said:

Pondering jazz as a genre, I will be the first to admit that I bought into the unfair stereotype that jazz is snore-inducing music from a lost, forgotten era. Images of horn, piano, and saxophone players jamming the night away in a smoke-filled darkly-lit club a loooong time ago fill my head instantly. Why would anyone want to listen to that nowadays, right? Wrong. Decided to give whatever I think jazz means, a real open-minded chance after being lured by the exciting snippets I'm hearing by artists challenging the notion that jazz is grandma's music.

Came to "Black Radio", the Robert Glasper Experiment's latest album, which cleverly references an airplane's black box containing all vital info, fortuitously by surfing on Anthology SD's website and noticed they were coming to town soon. This chill venue in San Diego always has great artists coming through, making the drive down from LA, worth it. The quartet, including Chris "Daddy" Dave who seems to be the drummer on every hot R&B album, crafted something I wish played on my radio but sadly is not. Checking out the album on NPR, was pleasantly surprised to discover my favorite artists like Erykah Badu, Musiq Soulchild, Yasiin Bey (the artist formerly known as Mos Def) and Stokely Williams were on this record.

Normally am leery of super-collabos where several artists come in, do their one song and it sounds like a disjointed mess thrown together for the sake of trying to obtain group or duo award nominations. But thankfully that did not occur here. Robert expertly connects everything cohesively and reminds us music can cut across multiple genres just cause, creating an album that is a strong sonic package from start to finish. Highlights include the "Afro Blue" cover featuring "Baduizm" or "Mama's Gun" vintage Erykah Badu, "Always Shine" with Bilal and Lupe Fiasco, Lalah Hathaway's cover of Sade's "Cherish the Day" and Stokely's cover of his band, Mint Condition's song, "Why Do We Try". It's rare these days in the world of being able to buy a MP3 that you'd want to purchase a whole album but this is worth the dough.

Completing the album, Robert and crew perform a daring Zapp mouthpiece-inspired cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". If you're going to do a cover of a song that historic, you'd better put your mark on it and that's exactly what they did. Deservingly showered with praise so far, wouldn't be surprised to hear some Grammy buzz around this project because as Yasiin said, "they were rocking with the best".

Rating: 8/10