Jazz breaking news: The Experiment Play Pop-Up Gig At Village Underground
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Robert Glasper Experiment played a pop-up gig, which attracted a big crowd to Shoreditch’s Village Underground late last night for a gig that 24 hours earlier had not even been thought about, let alone arranged.
Following Monday’s Barbican Hall appearance, when the influential New York-based jazz pianist and keyboardist had convened the Experiment for his biggest London show to date joined by singers Bilal and guest Lalah Hathaway, promoter John Cumming got on the phone to ex-Meltdown programming dude Glenn Max now booking at the Shoreditch warehouse venue space and put the word out. By 10pm last night some 200 early arrivals were snaking along Holywell Lane to get in for the show in the old converted industrial building/eco-friendly artist studio complex near railway lines, which began with alto sax man Casey Benjamin delivering a long scalding high register solo as Glasper got comfortable at the keys and got happy with the sound. Derrick Hodge got the crowd, easily now double its size from the earlier queue, warming to his suddenly revealing version of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ with loads of people spontaneously singing the chorus back to him prompting big smiles from the electric bassist who has just been signed by Don Was to Blue Note records. Drummer Marc Colenburg and the band then prepared the way to hit the Herbster’s ‘Butterfly’ with Benjamin fiddling with his keytar and powering in on vocodered vocals. Talk about spontaneous.
– Stephen Graham
Robert Glasper (above). Photo: Tim Dickeson