Not long after the arrival of pianist Robert Glasper on the New York City jazz scene, Ben Ratliff of the New York Times declared that Glasper’s trio “deserves comparison with the best of the newer piano trios, those led by Jason Moran, Bill Charlap and Brad Mehldau.” So it’s fitting that Glasper has decided to feature his trio exclusively on IN MY ELEMENT, his ravishing sophomore release for Blue Note Records. Joined again by his compatriots Vicente Archer on bass and Damion Reid on drums, Glasper displays musical maturity well beyond his 27 years, articulating bold ideas about what a jazz piano trio can achieve in the new millennium.

Glasper’s 2005 Blue Note debut, CANVAS, earned wide critical acclaim from both the jazz and mainstream press. DownBeat magazine awarded the album a four-star rating. TIME magazine praised Glasper’s “improvisational creativity and technical skill.” People magazine noted the album’s “accessible melodies, tumultuous beats and bright lyricism,” placing Glasper in a lineage with jazz icons Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. VIBE magazine declared that Glasper’s “remarkable debut shows why cats from Mos Def to Roy Hargrove have sought him out—proving that subtlety and soul are natural allies.”

Glasper’s trio has also headlined the famed Village Vanguard numerous times, and toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe. On the strength of all this public acclaim and whirlwind live experience, Glasper opted to follow up CANVAS, which featured top-tier special guests tenor saxophonist Mark Turner and vocalist Bilal, with an unadorned trio document. “When I tour, I don’t have special guests,” Glasper declares. “I thought it was important to just showcase the trio, to introduce this group to the world.” The starkly beautiful IN MY ELEMENT is the result.

It is clear that Glasper’s trio draws heavily on the aesthetic worldview of hip-hop, even as they foreground a scintillating, highly virtuosic jazz language on the uptempo “G & B,” the lilting waltz “Of Dreams to Come” and the Herbie Hancock/Radiohead mash-up “Maiden Voyage/Everything In Its Right Place.” At the close of nearly every piece, Glasper surprises the listener with a brief interlude to set the stage for the next tune. These types of fade-in-and-out segues, which are characteristic of modern hip-hop record production, create a sense of mystery and a flow beyond the individual song. “I’ve never really heard it done before on a jazz trio record,” Glasper offers. “Usually it’s all these effects and Rhodes and other stuff. I wanted to avoid a jazz/hip-hop hybrid because that can be corny. I figured the more organic, the better.”

In true jazz fashion, creating the interludes was itself an improvisational process. “Most of them are little snippets we made up in the studio,” Glasper explains. “I’d just start playing some random groove. One or two are actually parts of songs that I borrowed from and used. I didn’t really map out the album in advance – I recorded a bunch of interludes and then listened to see what would flow the best.”

The hip-hop influence is most explicit on “J Dillalude,” Glasper’s homage to hip-hop producer and pioneer J Dilla, who died tragically in February 2006. “I worked with Dilla in Detroit around 2000, and spent a week at his house,” Glasper recalls. “When he came to New York we’d go eat. He changed how a lot of people feel the beat, and he changed the way I lay chords down – how I blanket chords over certain rhythms. He’s also influenced drummers. A lot of them are Dilla freaks. It’s about the way a whole groove sounds, where the snare is placed in relation to the hi-hat, the bass drum and so on.” Just before the track starts we hear the voice of famed rapper and producer Q-Tip, suggesting that Glasper record some “Dilla joints,” but “trio-style.”

Rather than record these anew in the studio, Glasper assembled “J Dillalude” from his personal stash of live trio recordings, emphasizing his group’s ability to create a hip-hop aesthetic in the moment, in front of an audience. “A lot of jazz cats feel that jazz is free, that you can play whatever you want,” Glasper says. “But to lock in and let the groove seep in, that takes discipline.”

Glasper also uses a recording of his goddaughter to introduce the interlude preceding “One for ‘Grew.” “She likes to call me up and sing me songs,” Glasper says. “This was one of them, so I chopped it up and put something under it.” Similarly, the concluding piece “Tribute” includes the powerful speaking voice of Reverend Joe Ratliff, eulogizing Glasper’s mother, another painful and tragic loss. “I wrote this first and then listened back to the eulogy, and a lot of the phrases synched up and totally changed the color of the song,” Glasper marvels. He nods once again to his church upbringing on “Y’outta Praise Him,” a rhythmically complex gospel-infused cut preceded by a solo piano intro that references a number of Glasper’s favorite church hymns.

As deeply involved in the hip-hop world as Glasper is – he’s worked with Mos Def, Common, Talib Kweli, the Roots, Slum Village and more – he is clearly a diligent student of the jazz piano tradition. Thus we have “One for ’Grew,” a straight-eighth ballad inspired by the great Mulgrew Miller. “I met Mulgrew in high school in a jazz camp and I made him give me a lesson,” Glasper recalls. “He’s the most killing cat walking the planet. He’s so in the tradition but he’s so extra-modern. He preserves the music but at the same time he creates the music.” It’s an artistic example that Glasper takes to heart – his imaginative reworking of “Beatrice” by the legendary Sam Rivers is another case in point.

Glasper can play any standard in the book but is not content to recapitulate Tin Pan Alley harmony, AABA form or straightforward swing in his own work. Instead, he favors compact harmonic units and off-kilter rhythms that foster what Ben Ratliff calls “skittering cooperation” between the members of the trio. It’s a new way of working, but as Glasper points out: “I’m not trying, it’s just the way I hear. It’s a good way to bring my generation into checking out the music. We have a tendency to be angry that no one’s listening to jazz, but music is expensive, and on top of that, a lot of things sound old. I have to bring something into the music that they’ve heard and can relate to. Hip-hop cats and gospel cats are coming to my shows and that feels great. My audience is getting a lot younger.”