Robert Glasper Experiment: Black Radio – review

With his 2009 album Double Booked, pianist Robert Glasper pretended to be booked for a hip-hop gig and a jazz show on the same night – a device to join his formidable jazz skills to the urban music he so clearly enjoys. This set takes the process further, with Glasper's regular band joined by Erykah Badu (on a unique account of the classic Afro-Blue), Lalah Hathaway (Donny Hathaway's "first daughter of soul", on Cherish the Day), and R&B singer Chrisette Michele, who appears alongside Musiq Soulchild on the soul ballad Ah Yeah. Meshell Ndegeocello's pure sound is cushioned by piano, percussion and vocal overdubs on Consequences of Jealousy. Mos Def raps over Chris Dave's drums on the title track, before its ghostly withdrawal into whistling percussion. Casey Benjamin's vocoder feature on Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit makes a fittingly mesmeric conclusion. It might not work for fans of Glasper's acoustic-jazz firework display at the 2010 London jazz festival, but this rare artist can straddle idiomatic gaps, and doesn't compromise to do it.