Random Slices #11

Robert Glasper

Jazz, eh?! It’s a divisive genre. A lot of people say they hate it /want nothing to do with it /would prefer listening to a four four kick drum with a pitched up/down vocal sample over the top. Well, get your head out of your arse, is what I have to say to people with that kind of mentality. You like house music? You like Jazz. Hip Hop head? You like Jazz. Techno fiend? You like Jazz. Dubstep? Jazz. I know it’s a reductive argument, but if you like music of black origin (and is there actually really anything else?) then you are actually listening to some relative of jazz. Otherwise, stick with Beethoven and Wagner. The reason Robert Glasper is worth checking out is because he understands that people can be turned off by noodly solos, finger clicks etc, so he wraps his jazz in a swathe of modernity – crafting his music around fractured rhythms in the mould of J Dilla and simplifying the harmonic structure enough to keep a directness in the music that a lot of modern jazz loses. Well worth checking. Rant over.

Further Info/Tickets

Stinkfish

Mexican/Colombian street artist Stinkfish has his first solo show in London at the moment. He’s one of the best street artists out there, crafting huge psychedelic, colourful images on buildings all over the world. The show finishes Sunday, so last chance to check it out, we’ve run a little listing on the show this week, check that out here. 

Joe Jazz Evans