André 3000

By  https://downbeat.com/site/author/frank-alkyer" rel="nofollow - Frank Alkyer   |   Published May 2025

This is the first Editor’s Unpick that we’ve ever run online. There was a lotta talk when André 3000 put out New Blue Sun, his instrumental flute recording a couple of years ago. It was OK, meh, and many of us in the jazz world applauded the attempt. (Many also flat-out panned it.) With 7 piano sketches, André offers an EP of seven solo piano renderings lasting from under a minute to three-and-a-half minutes, improvisations he said were recorded a decade ago and never intended to be put out. So why do it now? This is not a professional record. He is not a good piano player. This is noodling at home, just one step up from Lou Reed’s 1975 release Metal Machine Music (go find it and blame me later for wasting your time). So, again, why do it? Does he owe the record company an album and wants to get out of the contract? Or was it all just to make his piano-themed costume for this year’s Met Gala make sense? Whatever the case, it’s the worst solo piano recording on a major label that this reviewer has ever heard. So, why one star, not zero? It’s 2025, and everybody gets a participation trophy these days. Now that I’ve joined the scads writers who have written about this EP, some loving it (insert rolling-eye emoji here), you’ll go out, listen to this and blame me for, again, wasting your time. Sorry, André — I love ya, but no. (If you do listen, I’d love to hear your feedback. Email me at [email protected].)

from https://downbeat.com