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Adjust Brightness with Bilal

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“I’m a jazz musician first, I feel,” says Bilal. Maybe this comes as news to the many admirers who know him as an ethereal singer with a shape-shifting R&B profile, or as one of the original catalysts for neo-soul. On a compelling new album, Adjust Brightness — his first studio release in almost a decade — Bilal explores a galactic sweep of sound, making genre distinctions feel all the more irrelevant to any conversation. But we had plenty to talk about during a spirited interview backstage at World Cafe Live, before Bilal’s homecoming album-release show. “I grew up with my heroes being Miles Davis, or Jimi Hendrix, or Sun Ra,” he attests, aligning himself with a legacy of Afrofuturist improvisers. We put him there too, and this episode explains why.

Greg Bryant has been a longtime curator of improvisational music as a broadcaster, writer, host and musician. As a young child, he began absorbing the artistry of Miles Davis, Les McCann, Jimmy Smith, James Brown, Ornette Coleman, Weather Report, and Jimi Hendrix via his parent's record collection. He was so moved by what he was experiencing that he took pride in relaying all of his discoveries with anyone who would listen.
Nate Chinen has been writing about music for more than 25 years. He spent a dozen of them working as a critic for The New York Times, and helmed a long-running column for JazzTimes. As Editorial Director at WRTI, he oversees a range of classical and jazz coverage, and contributes regularly to NPR.