Robert Glasper will bring his innovative take on jazz music to Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem Tuesday night for a free show as part of the City Parks Foundation's SummerStage concert series.
Glasper, a Houston, Texas native, attended the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, where he met and began performing with the neo-soul singer Bilal Oliver. Glasper, a pianist, has since gone on to work with a variety of hip-hop and R&B artists, including Mos Def, Q-Tip, Kanye West, Meshell Ndegeocello, J Dilla, Erykah Badu, Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Common, Slum Village and Maxwell.
His ties to hip-hop and R&B have led Glasper to experiment in his own music, creating a style of jazz that effortlessly blends the different genres. His latest album "Black Radio," released on Blue Note Records earlier this year, shocked the music world by debuting at No. 15 on the Billboard pop chart, an unheard of level of success for a jazz artist.
The album, which is Glasper's fourth, features collaborations with many of the artists he's worked with in the past.
“I wanted to do a record that showcased the fact that we play with artists in other genres,” Glasper explains on his website, adding that the album has “more of an urban, hip-hop, soul kind of vibe, but the spine of it all is still a jazz spine.”
Unnamed special guests are expected to join Glasper for Tuesday's free concert, so be sure to come out for what will likely be a memorable night of frontier expanding jazz music.
Show starts at 7 p.m. at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem.
