Blue Note London opened yesterday, on the exact centenary of John Coltrane's birth. Grammy winner Robert Glasper, the club's creative ambassador, marked the occasion with a set that honoured Coltrane, covered Radiohead, sampled D'Angelo and Dolly Parton and declared hip hop inseparable from jazz's future. Following weeks of teaser videos showing Glasper in a high-vis vest and hard hat surveying the raw St Martin's Lane basement, the Texan pianist sauntered, unnoticed and chewing gum, through the sold-out crowd of 250. "Mental advisory alert," read his T-shirt. "Creative content within."
After a warm-up set by DJ Jahi Sundance, who'd stay onstage, elevating his turntables into a live jazz instrument, and with virtuoso sidemen Burniss Travis II on bass and Justin Tyson on drums, Glasper settled behind his fortress of synths as if chilling in his front room. And what a room: designed by New York-based Legeard Studio, the club is a dark, blue-hued space of heavy drapes, jazz photography and intimate tables. Each bears a branded plaque echoing those at the original Blue Note in Greenwich Village; ours bore the name Ezra Collective.
