Leave it to Bilal to end his second nine-year album drought with a live recording -- one that almost completely disregards his three latest studio LPs and satisfies despite it. The most opportune time for the release of the singers first concert album might have been late 2016, just after Bilal won a Grammy for his role in Kendrick Lamars "These Walls" and stunned at The BET Awards with his performance of Princes "The Beautiful Ones." (Look it up and check the reactions from the audience, especially those of the singers.) Instead of fully seizing the momentum, Bilal kept touring and expanding his large body of supporting work. An overview of his 2016-2023 activity would have to include "Letter to the Free," "It Aint Fair," and "Aya," the first and last of which were recorded with rapper Common, keyboardist Robert Glasper, and bassist Burniss Travis, while the second song was made with Questlove (and the rest of the Roots). Those four master musicians form Bilals backing on the December 2023 date documented here, recorded in front of a small Brooklyn crowd. Freewheeling and celebratory, Live at Glasshaus is full of surprises beyond a track list that favors 1st Born Second and the leaked-and-bootlegged Love for Sale. While everything is easily identifiable, Bilal and his band get creative and stretch out on everything, with the exception of a relatively faithful "Soul Sista," the rapturous ballad that launched the singers career. "All Matter" is more intricately knotted and urgent than the versions on Double Booked and Airtights Revenge, extended to 12 minutes with Travis and Questlove sounding like theyve been playing together for decades, and Glasper taking a layered solo that stupefies. "All for Love" gets a fluid reading and seems more poised until the point where Bilal lets loose with a remorseful wail. Around the five-minute mark of an animated "Sometimes," all of the instrumentalists go off, and Bilal responds in kind with sustained eruptive vocalizing that would upstage most saxophonists. One new song squeaks through just before a sinuous 11-minute version of "Levels" finishes off the program. The searching ballad "Humility" itself seems partly improvisatory as it slips down oddly angled corridors -- winding through the Isley Brothers "Between the Sheets" and Commons own "I Used to Love H.E.R." -- during its nine minutes. Its an ideal setup for the cathartic and romantically fraught finale, sealed with a thankful goodbye from the singer Common refers to earlier as "one of the greatest artists and vocalists we will ever see on the planet." ~ Andy Kellman

Rovi