When

Friday 22nd October at 20:30
In concert on a superb double bill with the NEIL COWLEY TRIO

Where

Everyman Palace Theatre

Price: €35
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About

Sip the nectar of jazz and hip-hop’s cross-pollination courtesy of the brilliant Robert Glasper Experiment Band. And you will quickly discover why audiences, critics and musicians from across the spectrum have united in their praise of pianist Glasper’s lyrical flow, improvisational creativity and technical skill.

The 32-year-old Houston native, a Blue Note artist, maps out his astonishing versatility in each concert and bridges the hemispheres of his musical brain as he creates a sound that transcends boundaries. Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Terence Blanchard and Roy Hargrove, along with countless other jazz, hip-hop and soul artists, have sought his collaborative fire, such is his talent.

Glasper got into A Tribe Called Quest as a jazz kid at a performing-arts high school in Houston and later fell in with the East Coast hip-hop intelligentsia while on music scholarship in New York.

“I am one of the only cats who are in both worlds, jazz and hip-hop" Glasper says. "If you come to my US shows, you'll see Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Mos Def and Common ... but since the critics say, 'That cat can play,' I get a huge jazz audience at the same time.

"I think what I'm doing now is right in line with where jazz is supposed to be," he continues. "I'm playing what's fresh, what's now. It's not even of the future; it's now, but because much of jazz is so caught up with the past, now seems far ahead."

Glasper’s band is a stand-out one – with the great Bilal on vocals. The Philadelphian possesses an unbelievable vocal ability - one classically trained in jazz and opera, with open nods to such legends as Prince, Curtis Mayfield and Ella Fitzgerald. Bilal has been featured on projects with Guru, the Roots-led SoulQuarians Family, also with D'Angelo, Mos Def, Badu, Amhir, "Questlove", Thompson and Common.