Music warriors

The two musical acts today are “warriors” in their own ways. Glasper’s “fight” is to struggle and push for jazz’s relevance within contemporary music; and he does this by fusing more mainstream strands into the music without becoming commercial. As for Van the Man, he’s a grizzled veteran, still creating relevant music.

Robert Glasper Experiment — ArtScience (Blue Note Records, available on Amazon.com). Ever since his 2012 Black Radio came out of nowhere to win a Grammy, I’ve avidly followed the music of Glasper who, in the Miles Davis spirit, has blended jazz with more mainstream forms such as Hip-Hop, R&B and Soul, and often interspersing this with vocals. Imagine if you will, the music of such acts as Weather Report with the Wayne Shorter sax work, or Pat Metheny, and now add vocalists, and you get the gist of what Glasper is all about. In this latest, tracks such as Day to Day, You and Me and Tell Me a Bedtime Story exemplify this approach. As he did in Black Radio, where he did a treatment of Smells Like Teen Spirit, here he takes on the ’90’s anthem, Human. Van Morrison — Keep Me Singing (Caroline Records, available on Amazon.com). At the age of 71, it’s good to find a resurgent, spirited Van in the album of new tunes. A mixed bag, it seems the songs reflect different phases of his eclectic career. The romantic mysticism we find in tracks like Every Time I See a River and the title track, while the opener, Let It Rhyme recalls the more upbeat numbers like Moondance and Caravan. With The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword and Going Down to Bangor, his blues growl is in action. Out In the Cold Again is the ballad, the future standard of the album. The closing instrumental, Caledonia Swing, with Van on piano and alto sax, is part-shuffle, part-Irish jig. It is an album that heralds that we have not heard the last from Morrison.