Robert Glasper mines the Miles Davis archive on the inside-out tribute ‘Everything’s Beautiful’

“The jazz community kind of kills the alive to praise the dead,� Robert Glasper told The Times in a 2012 interview for his album “Black Radio.�

In addition to being successful enough to spawn a sequel, that record forged a path through jazz, R&B and hip-hop so inviting that a number of albums released by his contemporaries the last few years could be filed into the genre “post-Glasper.�

At the time of the interview, Glasper was bemoaning the jazz scene’s addiction to celebrating its past at the expense of its future. So who better to lead a new album-length tribute to Miles Davis in “Everything’s Beautiful,� a record in which Glasper attempts to honor the late master while keeping both feet grounded in the here and now?

It’s a delicate balancing act not dissimilar from the one attempted earlier this year with “Miles Ahead,� a much-anticipated Davis biopic led by Don Cheadle that had its moments but bore only a glancing resemblance to Davis’ life — particularly with regard to the surprising amount of gunplay. (That’s Glasper, by the way, at the keyboard with Cheadle’s Davis and the real-life Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter in the film’s odd if well-meaning coda.)

Glasper fares better here, however, partly because he seldom tries to join the countless albums that have attempted to meet Davis’ music head-on and instead primarily views his rich archive as raw material.

This can be as much as dropping a reverb-soaked sample of Davis’ trumpet from the 1971 album “A Tribute to Jack Johnson� to run with Stevie Wonder’s harmonica in “Right on Brotha� or as little as his parched whisper to carry the hook between Ledisi and guitarist John Scofield in the funk-heavy “I’m Leaving You.�

Bilal lends a soulful vocal over a flickering snippet of Davis’ “The Ghetto Walk� on the album’s lead single “Ghetto Walkin’,� and Erykah Badu helps recast “Maiysha� from “Get Up With It� into a swooning slow jam with Davis’ pinched trumpet swirling through the shadows.

Glasper’s sparkling keyboard briefly takes center stage during “Milestones,� the closest thing to a straightforward cover here, and though “Silence Is the Way� mostly keeps its “In a Silent Way� source material hidden, British singer-songwriter Laura Mvula carries the spirit of the track beautifully with a haunting, echo-laden vocal.

Other efforts are less successful. Australia’s Hiatus Kaiyote’s breezy “Little Church� goes on too long and adds little to the ghostly original, and the canned dance beat behind “Right on Brotha� sounds left over from a ‘90s acid jazz compilation.

Still, Glasper’s offered an interesting, genre-skipping snapshot of what Davis’ legacy of exploration means to him, and kept his own vision very much alive in the process.

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