Jazz used to be the coolest music on the planet. It was, in effect, pop music. Kids used to swing dance to swingin’ jazz. Duke Ellington used to be “that” dude. Miles, for a good 20 years, was the baddest kat in music. For the first half of the 20th Century, it was the music of young people. In the 20s, adults used to forbid their children from listening to “that jungle music.” But then rock & roll happened and that was that. They all borrowed heavily from jazz, whether it was the Beatles or Marvin Gaye – but young people spoke a new musical language and it didn’t involve too many trumpet solos.

Nowadays, it’s hip hop. The cool thing is that hop has always had a sort of reverence for jazz. It’s why Daddy-O and Stetsasonic entitled the early hip hop mandate for respect “Talking All That Jazz”. They were making a profound point: Yeah, we sample and use machines; but this is a music based in the spirit of improvisational jazz…recognize. Throughout the last 20 years you see somewhat frequent examples of the symbiotic relationship of the two genres. Jazz musicians like Roy Hargrove and Russell Gunn make albums heavily fused with hip hop, because it’s a way to stay current, to speak the language of their peers and the younger generation. Hop artists like Common and Q-Tip use musicians like Nicholas Payton and Kenny Garrett to add that texture that only a live instrument played by a virtuoso can provide. In each instance, the result is some bangin’ music.

Recently, pianist Robert Glasper has become somewhat of, not only a hip hop darling, but a contemporary music darling in general. Whether it’s backing Mos Def at a Brooklyn Academy of Music concert, getting Bilal to show up on his debut (Moods) or playing with Me’Shell Ndegeocello – Glasper gets around. And it’s for a reason.

I first got hip to Glasper in 2001. He was a barley-legal monster, rippin’ it with a bunch of other barely-legal monsters on Marcus Strickland’s At Last. The way he phrased his solos, the way he composed (sparsely placed chords that accentuate a rhythm); it all gave you the feeling that he grew up listening to Large Professor tracks or put DJ Premier’s “D Original” on repeat. But just that quickly he’d cascade up and down the keys and bang out something gorgeous and lyrical. That dexterity and versatility (the kind that made Herbie Hancock so great) is what makes Glasper such a hot and appropriate commodity. He’s a jazz musician that exhibits so much comfort doing his thang within other idioms.

He recently released In My Element, an album that like his two other releases (Mood and Canvass) is a bit understated if you’ve heard Glasper unleash on other musicians’ albums (check Twi-Life, Brotherhood, Profile, Bounce); but it has some incredible highlights. The highlights just so happen to be his more contemporary sounding joints. “F.T.B.” sports a groove/bounce and a waterfall of Glasper-chords, the type of track you’d hear at an upscale soul food restaurant like Georgia Browns or Justin’s. But the “J Dillalude” is the clearest example of why Glasper is getting calls from everyone to come and drop chords on their albums. The track begins with a voice mail from Q-Tip, suggesting that Glasper try to reprise some Dilla beats “trio-style.” And that’s what he did, cycling through “Thelonius”, “Stakes Is High” and “Fall In Love”. It’s classic stuff. The fact that he even went there was dope. The fact that he went there and blazed it is important.

He’s the best young voice on the piano – hands down. And he can make jazz relevant, even if you aren’t a heavy-listener. Please get hip.