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A collection of newsworthy jazz-related headlines.

“This Week in Jazz” brings you a collection of jazz-related headlines, focusing on news, video, and articles in the new generation of jazz / hip-hop / soul. See below for the headlines you don’t want to miss this week.

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK: A MONTH OF ROBERT GLASPER’S EXPERIMENTS AT THE BLUE NOTE

(New York Times)

 

“Somewhere close to midnight last Sunday, the rapper Yasiin Bey tossed his hoodie over a mic stand and hunkered down into a shimmy, tilting forward and leaping back across the tight Blue Note stage, his eyes locked on Chris Dave’s snare drum.

The night marked the halfway point of Robert Glasper’s residency at the West Village club, continuing through Oct. 28. The pianist was perched on a stool, holding the energy just below a boil as he dotted the band’s high-friction groove with chords from one of his three keyboards. The D.J., Jahi Sundance, dropped samples over Mr. Dave’s drums and Derrick Hodge let wide, dark tones resound on the electric bass.

Mr. Glasper is just the fourth musician to do a full month at the Blue Note. (The others have been Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea and, for the past 13 Decembers, Chris Botti.) The residency is yet another reminder that Mr. Glasper, who turned 40 in April, is probably the most prominent jazz musician of his generation. He’s gotten there by playing within and without jazz, and pushing the music to reconsider its boundaries.”

Read the full article here.

KAMASI WASHINGTON CREATES RHYTHMIC TRANCE IN ‘HUB-TONES’ VIDEO

(Rolling Stone)

Saxophonist Kamasi Washington, whose distinctive brand of avant-garde, epic, and ethereal jazz has garnered him world-wide acclaim, released ‘Heaven and Earth’ earlier this year, to the applause of critics and fans alike. Now, he has released a compelling video for “Hub-Tones,” courtesy of Director Jenn Nkiru.

“Kamasi Washington’s explosive jazz-fusion elicits a rhythmic trance in his new “Hub-Tones” video. The track, which appears on the saxophonist’s recently issued double LP, Heaven and Earth, is an updated version of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s 1963 piece of the same name. Director Jenn Nkiru zooms in on three women locked in their hypnotic dances, focusing primarily on one woman who closes her eyes and shakes a tambourine throughout the shapeshifting nine-minute track. Nkiru – who also helmed Washington’s “Fists of Fury” – fills the video with nods to her heritage (like the Pan African Flag for the Relic Travellers’ Alliance) and assorted Easter eggs, including “make-up and crystal embellishment in the style of Nina Simone and the same lighting as seen in the courthouse hearings of Anita Hill.”“

Read more about the video here.

THE PLAYLIST: ESPERANZA SPALDING’S INTOXICATING GROOVE, AND 12 MORE NEW SONGS

(New York Times)

Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos — and anything else that strikes them as intriguing. Featured this week is “You Have to Dance” off Esperanza Spalding’s newly released ’12 Little Spells’ — a 12-part visual album she released over the course of the last two weeks.

“On her last few albums, Esperanza Spalding has embraced pop and rock convention with one hand while reaching into esotericism with the other. As her writing has grown more literary, she’s also been making music that’s directly, physically engaging. Those contradictions — or complements — come to a head in “12 Little Spells,” the album she just released song by song, in video form, over the past two weeks. Informed by her studies of Reiki and other spiritual healing practices, each tune is meant to cast a liberating spell on a different area of the body. In many, the deftly constructed music is snarled around wordy verses: You have to let go, allow the $5 verbiage and shifting melodies to swim around you and become a kind of manic trance. But on some pieces — the sensuous “Touch in Mine,” the bluesy “Thang” and the clipped funk of “You Have to Dance,” meant to aid in the “ability to move one’s feet freely in accompaniment with the movement of one’s inner feeling” — the music becomes cool and repetitive, truly intoxicating.”

Watch “You Have to Dance” and see the rest of the playlist here.

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY FOR OCT. 19: 8 ALBUMS YOU SHOULD HEAR NOW

(NPR Music: All Songs Considered)

The NPR New Music Friday playlist brings together a wide range of the week’s best new music in one place — featured this week are tracks from both Esperanza Spalding’s ’12 Little Spells’ and Phony Ppl’s ‘mō’zā-ik.’

“On this week’s sprint through the best new releases we’ve got irresistible earworms from Peter Bjorn & John, the deep soul of PHONY PPL, Esperanza Spalding’s mind-bending songcraft and more. All Songs Considered‘s Robin Hilton is joined by NPR Music’s Ann Powers, Lars Gotrich, Nate Chinen of WBGO, Sidney Madden and Stephen Thompson as they breakdown the best albums out on Oct. 19.”

NONAME’S TV DEBUT ON ‘COLBERT’ WAS A GLORIOUS STATEMENT OF INTENT

(Noisey)

Beloved rapper Noname may have just released her first album last month, but she was making waves long before that. Her solo TV debut was on none other than the Late Show with Stephen Colbert — a coveted slot graced by many music industry veterans, and a Noname certainly lived up to expectations and beyond. Catch her explosive three-song set, featuring the artist showcasing exactly what makes her so extraordinary.

“Noname’s first proper album, Room 25, is a month old now; it’s still in my everyday rotation, and it’s likely going to stay there well into next year. It’s fearless, eloquent, witty, lusciously produced, and totally devoid of needless frills and flashy guest spots. It takes everything that made Telefone, her 2016 debut tape, so exciting, then boils off everything extraneous. It’s the type of record that people will look back on in three years, when Noname is universally regarded as a straight-up star, as a career-defining moment. It rules. She rules.

She made her solo TV debut last night, and, appropriately, she started at the top, skipping right over every other late-night show and going straight to Colbert.”

Read more over at Noisey.