Robert Glasper: In December

Is there anything to be done with carols like ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ and ‘Joy to the World’ that hasn’t been done in the past 300 years? If there is, Grammy-winning pianist, composer, and producer Robert Glasper is the kind of artist to do it. ‘I like covering songs that people know well’ Glasper tells Apple Music. ‘That’s what I’ve done throughout my whole career’. It’s true: As a jazz pianist, he’s obviously learned his way around making classics his own, whether they were written by Mongo Santamara or Kurt Cobain. But, he says, ‘The biggest challenge in making a holiday album was trying to do it in a way that feels festive but at the same time feels real and not corny’. He succeeds on both fronts on ‘In December’, his holiday album that mixes classic carols with a set of originals. Part of what keeps it credible is the fact that Glasper’s hiphop/R&B/jazz fusion is done on a compositional level instead of just a cosmetic one (no collage