In My Element

iTunes Review

Robert Glasper is a gifted jazz musician with the soul of a hip-hop producer. In My Element, Glasper’s second album for Blue Note, has all the intimacy and emotion of Bill Evans’ classic trio recordings, but the cadences and motions of his group are directly inspired by groove-minded rap producers like Pete Rock, DJ Premier, and especially, J. Dilla. Glasper pays tribute to Dilla’s work in “J Dillalude,” a medley of some of Dilla’s deepest beats reformatted in the style of Glasper’s band, while pieces like “F.T.B.” and “Tribute” contain the kind of mysterious, deep-water chords that Dilla or Pete Rock could have easily sampled for their own work. A merging of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” and Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” serves as the centerpiece of In My Element. More than just an indicator that jazz styles have permeated modern pop music, the piece shows that Glasper unearths inspiration in unexpected sources, just as his hip-hop producer peers search for sound pieces in the grooves of discarded records.