Robert Glasper: 'I get sick of touring run-of-the-mill jazz clubs'

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/08/robert-glasper-winter-jazzfest-new-york-jazz

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The three-day Winter Jazzfest is now in its 11th year and manages to cram 103 acts into its schedule. It’s brazenly devoted to measuring the pulse of New York’s indigenous scene and is not overly concerned with the higher-profile artists, preferring instead to highlight rising talent, or established acts who perhaps don’t always receive the exposure.

When it started in 2005, the festival was held in one venue, The Knitting Factory. The year after it expanded to a small clutch of clubs and bars that were huddled around a manageable stretch of downtown Manhattan, but the number of locations has been steadily expanding in recent times, reaching out as far as the Bowery Electric to the east. The familiar Greenwich Village locations include (Le) Poisson Rouge, the Zinc Bar and The Bitter End, but now Judson Church, the Minetta Lane Theater and the Players Theater have been added. For jazz fans it offers a weekend of discovery and the avant garde while there are day passes for those who just want to dip their toes in.

One of the bigger names at the festival is Robert Glasper, a jazz artist with hip-hop leanings who’s managed to bring in new, young fans to jazz venues. Glasper played at the Poisson only last month, as part of Our Point Of View, a combo made up of some of contemporary jazz’s leading lights including Kendrick Scott and Lionel Loueke, dedicated to celebrating the legacy of Blue Note. For him Winter Jazzfest offers the chance to play outside the confines of conventional jazz venues.

“I get sick of touring run-of-the-mill jazz clubs that look like a museum for dead jazz musicians,” he said. “That’s not fun or hip, and I don’t like having to introduce my hip young audience to that. (Le) Poisson Rouge is different: it says ‘this music is alive and well’.”

The original impetus for the creation of Winter Jazzfest was the timing of the Apap conference (Association of Performing Arts Presenters), a gathering of artist bookers who constituted the ideal throng, with an appetite to witness as many bands performing in as little time as possible. This weekend’s marathon continues that logjam tradition and will feature saxophonists such as Oliver Lake and David Murray, both of whom freely skirt between organic tradition and abstract experimentation. Among the impressive younger players are Blue Note-signed trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, who has an almost equal interest in modern classical composition.

Glasper likes the fact that Winter Jazzfest offers peers the chance to see what every one is up to all in the space of a weekend.

“You’re in the midst of your contemporaries, watching them watching you,” he said. “In a way, it’s friendly competition. As an audience member it gives me a chance to check out artists I don’t normally get to see because I’m away all the time, so I get to see a lot in one or two nights, which is great. It’s also great that promoters, writers and musicians are all in the same venues for this festival, I think it will definitely help further relationships, and also the music as a whole.”

Glasper tops the bill at Blue Note Now!, a gig that pays homage to that great label, a jazz institution that marked its 75th year of influential creative dominance in 2014. He’ll be joined by singer José James, bassist Derrick Hodge and drummer Kendrick Scott’s Oracle, all of them currently signed to the label.

He promises to unveil some works from the new album where he’ll be joined by Vicente Archer and drummer Damion Reid. “It’s mostly all cover songs from different artists on my iPod. I chose my covers based on artists I like, and the songs I like.”

He’s covered unlikely artists before, like when he re-imagined Nirvana’s grunge ode Smells Like Teen Spirit as a spaced-out jazz trip, and that cross-pollination has served him well as he’s sought to bring in new fans. But does he think his “hip young audience” feels welcome in mainstream jazz clubs due to the usually higher prices? “It’s not about the cover charge, it’s more about the vibe, and what my particular audience would enjoy. My audience is broad, so even that varies,” he said.

“I travel the world, and most of the clubs have that dead-jazz-musicians-on-the-wall vibe, and it can suck the life out of the present. Not many jazz clubs celebrate the past and future at the same time.”

Winter Jazzfest runs from Thursday 8 January to Saturday 10 January, various venues, winterjazzfest.com.