No Worries For Robert Glasper As He Gears Up For Release Of His Latest Album
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Robert Glasper’s upcoming album Double-Booked, due to be released by Blue Note in late-August follows In My Element from two years ago and comes four years after his debut for the label, Canvas.
The pianist who melds jazz with hip hop rhythms in an organic way features on the album on the first six tracks in a trio setting with bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Chris Dave, the latter two who have played together with alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett. The trio tracks include ‘No Worries’ which Glasper unveiled at Charlie Wright’s in Hoxton last year.
The title of the song, says Glasper, refers to London slang. “This is a little ditty I came up with when I was in London at a sound check. We played it that night at the show. I kept hearing people in London say ‘no worries,’ and that seemed like the title. It has a real positive, bright, ‘it’s OK’ vibe.” Other trio group songs are ‘Downtime’, Texas-related ‘Yes, I’m Country (And That’s OK)’ and ‘59 South’, referring to a busy Houston highway. The trio also play Monk’s ‘Think of One’ which quotes from Ahmad Jamal’s ‘Swahililand’. The rest of the album retains Dave on drums and also features live excerpts of rapper Mos Def on ‘4Eva’, a version of ‘Butterfly by Herbie Hancock, featuring Casey Benjamin on vocoder effects and a J Dilla beat. Benjamin’s effects are also on the 10-minute track ‘Festival’, while his track ‘For You’ with drummer Sameer Gupta is followed by Bilal Oliver’s ‘All Matter’.
The last track on the album is now confirmed as ‘Open Mind’ which contains portions of a further unissued track titled ‘Scenes of the City’. Check out jazzwisemagazine.com for news of Robert Glasper UK dates as they break.