KING

OTM. I had a really shitty, annoying start to the morning the other day and I listened to this album over the course of my commute and my irritation just ~dissolved~.

I listened to it last night when I had to with late and I was really stressed out.

I think I’ve listened to this album about 10 times more than any other so far this year.

fuck i missed them last night. how was the oakland show?

Mpls show was really nice. All about the vocals, with everything else pushed to the back, though Paris got pretty funky on the keys at times.

I have started listening to this yesterday.
it sounds great although for now, the album may lack some "hits" but I guess it takes some time before I can really make out and appreciate the songs.
"Native Land" seems fantastic, though. It has something in common with Blood Orange's sound and it seems they have worked together, so that would make sense.

They’ve announced they are playing London and Manchester end of March.

paris and amber strother apparently worked with corinne bailey rae on her new single, and it shows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iibMNsSRCE

I was just wondering where she's been. The Sea is still a fave.

Ah, that must be why I like the new Corinne Bailey Rae so much. That was a surprise.

Her last album was incredible tho!

trippy new video for 'carry on'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YwhEgflFRM

2001 needed an R&B epilog.

Meanwhile, I think "RedEye" is sufficient justification for a Donald Fagen collaboration.

i wanna see a video with them in it at some point

This never fails to chill me out

Hmmm interesting

hi

wow @ this album. this is my sound.

i hope they get massive

hi

Lol Im still stuck in '15, but I've been super stressed at work. Thinking maybe I should listen to this album at breaks.

It's a nice audio world to inhabit

On a Miles Davis tribute album.

http://pitchfork.com/news/64049-erykah-badu-stevie-wonder-bilal-king-featured-on-miles-davis-tribute-album/

What's the point of doing a tribute for the most popular jazz trumpeter of all time with people who are not jazz musicians? It's not like his tunes are crying for a pop/R&B treatment, and I doubt most of these people, as great as they are, can do them justice.

What's the point in anything

true

I think that's the most infuriating Tuomas post I've ever read. The point is that Miles Davis has/had influence beyond jazz, and that King are musicians, and that voices are instruments, and that their enthusiasm is more important than your doubt.

Sorry if that sounded too negative, I didn't mean to criticise KING specifically, but the whole project. I just don't get doing tributes that do not even honor what the tributee was about. Miles Davis always wanted to push things forward, I'm sure getting some contemporary, underappreciated jazz players to do hypermodern *jazz* versions of his tunes would much more in his spirit than this kind of non-jazz pop star get-together.

so miles can do jazz versions of pop songs and even classical pieces, but pop performers can't do version of jazz numbers?

It's a Robert Glasper album featuring all these guest vocalists. Robert Glasper is a jazz musician (who admittedly has been making boring r&b/pop albums featuring guest vocalists recently).

Also I don't think Miles Davis was especially enamored of 'jazz' after a point.

Actually it sounds like a weird blend of things (overdubbing on/sampling Miles recordings?), so who knows:

Everything’s Beautiful brings Miles Davis’ sound into the 21st century, blending a diverse group of master takes and outtakes from across Miles’ incredible tenure with Columbia Records (1955-1985) with original reinterpretations. Robert Glasper produced the collaboration.

But there have been enough jazz albums that pay tribute to (or recreate the style of) almost every phase of his career, so y'know, whatever they want to do.

Glasper's Black Radio albums are spectacular; dude is a genius so I'm totally happy to see his remix culture take on miles

reminds me of this project (which had its moments, actually): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthalassa:_The_Music_of_Miles_Davis_1969%E2%80%931974

why is glasper a genius

Well, musically he's a demon both as a composer and a performer; probably seen him play a dozen shows live and he has never been anything less than enthralling.

As a cultural figure, in the direct face of the wyntonesque old guard, he has long argued in principle and action that the way forward for jazz as a popular art form is to embrace contemporary hip hop and r&b. He has been doing that from the aughties when peeps dismissed that as corny hip bop revivalism but hey lo and behold it begets thundercat and kendrick and many of the the boldest and most meaningful voices in both jazz and hip hop. He has been a force for musicianship in rap and vitality in jazz and theres a limited number of people doing that.

lo where behold what beget how

http://weigelbroadcasting.com/assets/contest/206/contestimage/980x420_TooHotToHandel.png

glasper plays some good piano on a bilal album i like

"lo where behold what beget how"

glasper's recording career is over ten years old, i'm saying he's been around long enough to change the conversation. he's extremely influential and impactful on the creative careers of any number of contemporary musicians who came up hearing him and are now working with him.
he's a guy who was raised on the native tongues and has a tribute to dilla as one of his standards. the vast majority of serious jazz artists of the early 00's didn't much fuck with hip hop (except in extremely corny ways), glasper is a successful, thoughtful composer who does
http://bricartsmedia.org/events/robert-glasper-experiment-featuring-talib-kweli-glenn-kotche-aja-monet
^this show pulled around 10k people; there were massive crowds outside the gates. this kind of crossover jazz revivalism is a significant musical movement, both in terms of audience interest and creative output, and glasper's on the vanguard

I don't disagree with any of that forks, I just wish I was more into the records he's making. Like, the band is playing songs with all these guest vocalists and the playing is weirdly safe, but the songs are just not that great. And when Glasper/Derrick Hodge/Chris Dave show up in the context of someone else's record where there is a stronger concept happening (thinking Maxwell, D'Angelo, Jose James, Kendrick, etc), there's a lot more 'going for it'.

why is glasper a genius

some of that's matter of taste i guess? imo both black radio albums were among the best music released in their given year (sure they are occasionally corny but idgaf).

But i hear what you're saying about how he and the trio are pretty straight ahead with their playing on their own albums (though maybe try a few tracks on the new album, Covered; his take on Stella by Starlight is dope and shows great versatility). he values beauty in his playing and i think that sometimes gets confused with weakness; just because he has a fondness for lengthy polished legato sections doesn't make what he's doing any less daring. also i will cop to being colored by seeing his live performances which are multi-media jam sessions and often inspire more experimentation.

it may be fair to say that glasper is most effective culturally when he's part of the mix but it's too easy to overlook that he's the straw that stirs the drink.

Didn't know about Covered, definitely enjoying this more than Black Radio. I wish Chris Dave was on it though, they're such good foils for each other. Glasper will play something pretty and CD will fill in the space with something so unexpected and rhythmically digusting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xObvb77GzQE

maybe we should move this to the Glasper or the jazz thread though.

yeah, that video is entirely in line with what i think of when i think of glasper. great stuff.
if you wanna stay on thread topic, i think there's def intersectionality with Glasper and KINGs sound and maybe a good piece to be written about how they're both children of 80's R&B and jazz fusion. riyl for sure

So good in London last night. Incredible atmosphere and Native Land for the encore.

Agreed, best gig I've been to so far this year.

excellent, stoked about seeing them tmw

i couldn't go :(

Free show in NYC in Central Park on Saturday, June 11 at 2:00pm with Cymande and Deva Mahal; apologies for reposting this on a zillion threads but I'm excited.
http://www.cityparksfoundation.org/event/summerstage-cymande-king-deva-mahal-dj-parler/

with CYMANDE?!!???

right?