Is This The Future of Jazz?

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (here) interviewed Robert Glasper. Glasper is a piano player and record producer who is described as trying to synthesize hip hop and jazz. Glasper has gone further than this and argued that jazz itself has become stagnant and needs to change. The WSJ article and Glasper's other interviews raise a number of issues about jazz that have been debated through the 20th century to the present: What is jazz and how does it differ from other music forms? Can a jazz musician be commercially successful and avoid "selling out"? Is jazz Black music? If jazz is racially defined what can other minorities and White musicians contribute, if anything (is there a White jazz)? Is jazz dead in the 21st Century? Is Robert Glasper's music the future of jazz?

Ultimately, the answers to these questions revolve around whether you or anyone else likes listening to any piece of music, not whether it's classified as jazz, hip hop, Western classical music, or some synthesis. So you really just have to listen to Glasper's music (the video above provides a good sample of his current work) and decide for yourself (personally, I like it, but...). If a style of music has an audience, that's all that matters and the rest of this post and other critics opinions are really irrelevant.

Here are a few great quotes from the WSJ article (mostly attributed to Glasper):

"Jazz is gong to die if we don't take it someplace else."

Wynton Marsalis "I don't think the art form [jazz] is going to receive anything by being R&B. That's already been done."

"I never got my due when it came to the jazz community."

"I'm not playing R&B because I need the money and hate the music. That's selling out; R&B is just more a part of my life experience than jazz."

Having an argument about jazz is difficult because defining jazz is not that easy. The typical components in any definition involve: (1) improvisation (but what about big band arrangements?), (2) swing (free rhythmic interpretations, changes of key and time signature, playing behind the beat, syncopation, etc.), (3) spontaneity of group interactions (but what about solo playing?), (4) starting with "heads" rather than complete arrangements, and (5) elements of popular music (the Great American Song Book, Blues, Rap, Rock, Bossa Nova, etc.).

Robert Glasper's music meets many parts of the definition, but not everything. The role of improvising seems less prominent although Gasper would probably look at each piece as a product of an improvisational process.

For me, I've lived with this debate since I started listening to jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. Montgomery started out as a swing musician playing Charlie Christian solos (Christian was the first well-known electric guitarist and played with the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra). In his early career Montgomery played bebop and hard bop while in his later career, as he became more popular, he move into pop and rock (the supposed "sell out" period). He influenced many guitarists and his Bumpin' album is considered the first example of smooth jazz.

Robert Glasper is traveling a well worn path here. Is it the future of jazz? Time will tell...