Hank Shteamer on Andre 3000 and the spiritual-jazz-aissance

[JSngry]

It will always happen. No way to stop it. So why expend energy on it?

Button pushing or buttons pushed?

[clifford_thornton]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

 

Button pushing or buttons pushed?

both!

[JSngry]

Trying to keep my buttons away from the button pushers.

Some days are better than others, but it's worth the effort anyway.

[ep1str0phy]

I had to log in just to see what the line was on this thing. I say this as someone with a deep love of hip-hop and avant-garde beat music - I think it's a bad record. At the same time, I'm more troubled by the response to said record than I am the content of the album itself.

I'm strongly of the mind that these self-indulgent novelty records aren't a bad thing, at least in an intrinsic sense. A good point of comparison is Kid Cudi's Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven. That album was universally derided. It's objectively a mess of amateurish musicianship and tonal inconsistency, but it's also one of my favorite concept albums. It somehow manages to say something revealing about the artist, and it does so with ugly, confused sincerity. It's a project that deserves to exist, despite its aggressive lack of coherence. 

If Andre 3000 had just farted this thing out on Bandcamp, it would have been totally fine. Everyone does this these days. What's preposterous about the whole thing is that it's clearly part of a quasi-publicity stunt, timed with Andre's appearance at the Met Gala. He and his team are actively using his celebrity to push the visibility of an artistically malformed object. 

I try to find virtue in everything, and I'm not so precious about my first steps into this music that I forget how much of my own output represents a work in progress. But these piano pieces are just bad. Like straight up bad. They're technically inept and unfocused, without any clarity of vision. Worse still, they sound unfinished - unmixed and unmastered, lazily sold as "sketches." The thing feels like an elaborate troll - which, if that is the case, then I take back everything I said. Job well done.

Andre can do whatever he wants, obviously. He's a celebrity whose fumbling efforts at art music have an admitted element of sincerity. But what makes this thing so egregious is the mass delusion that has followed in its wake. It's been nonstop critical plaudits and (bemused) admiration from casual listeners. I kind of feel like the only people who have actually been complaining are actual art musicians in the tradition that Andre is mining, like Shipp.

And it's not a matter of jealousy - not entirely, at least. If I'm understanding Shipp correctly, it's not that people want Andre's listeners for themselves. They just want acknowledgement that the work has an objective reality, and that there are metrics and criteria for even considering the continuum of Black music, art music, etc. that supersede short attention spans and faddish dilettante-ism. Because most of the listeners who grab this thing will never listen to Shipp, but it's not as if Andre seems to care about that problem one way or another. 

 

[Rabshakeh]

He apparently recorded the tracks in 2013. So it is really was just timed for the Met Gala.

I imagine Andre 3000 found an old USB at the back of his sock drawer, and decided it would be fun to use the recordings as part of a four dimensional Met Gala costume. 

As you say, the critical plaudits which it has received have been more concerning than the actual music. Iverson's record has a series of extracts from glowing reviews of what is essentially a quality-free vanity release. Glowing from both fans and legacy critics. That lack of discernment, and lack of interest in even appearing discerning, is dangerous for culture.

[ep1str0phy]

Exactly. If you're going to invoke the name of Thelonious Monk, and you are a music writer, you have some obligation to explicate the ways in which the work in question relates to Monk. Is Andre a virtuoso pianist? Is he a hobbyist? Does Andre have an actual grasp of harmony, or is his work more intuitive? Is there a gap in terms of quality, artistic accomplishment, or cultural relevance? 

Like, you don't have to answer these questions as if you were writing a dissertation. But maybe exercise a bit of self awareness beyond, "hey, this sounds like Thelonious Monk." 

The articles about Shipp have been crazy, too. They're treating Shipp as if he's indicative of some kind of jazz orthodoxy, which conveniently underplays the very real fact that Shipp has spent his entire career participating in fringe music. The headline in these instances is that "Jazz Pianist Doesn't Like Andre 3000" - which is utterly devoid of nuance. 

This is one of those situations in which the machine of the music business seems glaringly, stupidly transparent. It's been a bunch of bad-faith hot takes and very little responsibility in terms of representing art in an honest and clearheaded way. 

[clifford_thornton]

This.

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, ep1str0phy said:

If I'm understanding Shipp correctly, it's not that people want Andre's listeners for themselves. They just want acknowledgement that the work has an objective reality, and that there are metrics and criteria for even considering the continuum of Black music, art music, etc. that supersede short attention spans and faddish dilettante-ism. Because most of the listeners who grab this thing will never listen to Shipp, but it's not as if Andre seems to care about that problem one way or another. 

Sorry dude. That's not the way shit's working these days. About anything.

We were lucky to have once lived in a world where it was.

Yeah, I'm dark about it. But I'm sure to be dead in 25 years or less, the blink of an eye really. It's you kids I feel bad for, you who have enough time left to think that it will get better in just a little bit.

L'il Jimmy of 1982 is here to wish you all the luck in the world with that.

 

[Ken Dryden]

Andre3000’s piano playing should be taken about as seriously as Hunter Biden’s paintings.

[ep1str0phy]

Let me put it this way: Hunter Biden is a way better painter than Andre 3000 is a pianist. It's to the extent that it feels like a social experiment of sorts. 

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Sorry dude. That's not the way shit's working these days. About anything.

We were lucky to have once lived in a world where it was.

Yeah, I'm dark about it. But I'm sure to be dead in 25 years or less, the blink of an eye really. It's you kids I feel bad for, you who have enough time left to think that it will get better in just a little bit.

L'il Jimmy of 1982 is here to wish you all the luck in the world with that.

I appreciate the perspective - sincerely. There are some phenomena, like the deal with this record, that are so mind boggling and dumb that feel manufactured precisely for this moment in history. One of the few things that gives me comfort at this time is hearing stories about the old heads - about how Sunny Murray had to take it upon himself to serve as Eric Dolphy's bodyguard, because Eric was constantly under threat of assault, or about how Milford Graves still had piles of unsold IPS records sitting in his back room around the time of his passing.

I think that things are baldly desperate right now, but not necessarily more desperate than they were/have been. This dust up about Andre 3000's record will just be grains of sand on the beach when all is said and done. 

[clifford_thornton]

Not really the point, but I'm sure Milford could have had Black Editions or Eremite sell those IPS albums for him if he wanted them moved...

[JSngry]

"when all is said and done..." 

Uh, yeah. Maybe some of us will live that long.

But I doubt it.

Frogs, boiling water, etc 

[ep1str0phy]

2 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

Not really the point, but I'm sure Milford could have had Black Editions or Eremite sell those IPS albums for him if he wanted them moved...

And maybe he didn't. I knew him, but I can't pretend to know what he was thinking. His career is kind of an object lesson in how not all art shares the same goal. Andre 3000 wanted to make a splash at the met gala. Milford was trying to teach something. Everyone needs money, but not everyone wants it for the same reasons.

 

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

"when all is said and done..." 

I can feel negative about the state of things, but I can't afford to be pessimistic. That's purely a matter of personal exigency, and I understand the opposite impulse. 

[JSngry]

Time. Trends  eventually. Reality.

[Dub Modal]

If it wasn't for Shipp's critique I'd have never known about this album. Any pub is good pub indeed. Initial take without listening is that it's a straight up grift by Andre. Not the first to do so and not the last, although just where this grift will go is anyone's guess. Whoever does his publicity is earning their checks for sure. 

[T.D.]

1 hour ago, Dub Modal said:

If it wasn't for Shipp's critique I'd have never known about this album. Any pub is good pub indeed. Initial take without listening is that it's a straight up grift by Andre. Not the first to do so and not the last, although just where this grift will go is anyone's guess. Whoever does his publicity is earning their checks for sure. 

[Italics added]

I (also?) was unaware of the album until the Shipp-related post here.

Agreed on "only bad PR is no PR", a concept that dates back to Oscar Wilde if not earlier.

Not clear that it's "grift" IMO. Dictionary definition is "way of getting money dishonestly that involve tricking someone". I don't see that here: the recording was promoted as pianism by a non-pianist, and ample clips are available for potential buyers. The interesting question relates to Andre 3000's intent (which is unknown): Does he regard this as a con, or does he think it's music worth attention? I lean slightly to the former, but the latter is by no means out of the question. 

Agreed that his PR rep is doing a great job. The idea of the "Met Gala" (whatever the f**k that is...I've never paid attention but it's apparently a big thing) appearance was definitely hatched by a flack.

Obligatory old fart/curmudgeon comment: Over the years I've intentionally become completely out of touch with popular culture (don't use social media, quit watching TV long ago, etc.), and this episode seems to vindicate my stance. 😁

[Rabshakeh]

2 minutes ago, T.D. said:

Obligatory old fart/curmudgeon comment: Over the years I've intentionally become completely out of touch with popular culture (don't use social media, quit watching TV long ago, etc.), and this episode seems to vindicate my stance. 😁

Hate to say it, but Andre 3000 may be approaching "old fart/curmudgeon" status himself. His heyday was whilst I was at school. 

[T.D.]

6 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Hate to say it, but Andre 3000 may be approaching "old fart/curmudgeon" status himself. His heyday was whilst I was at school. 

Could be. I actually remember hearing the big hit "Hey Ya!" on the car radio 20-25 years ago. Didn't know he was involved until reading about the Shipp brouhaha.

But Andre 3000's an incipient "old fart/curmudgeon" making loads of dosh from the pop culture machine.

[ep1str0phy]

If I'm looking at this in a clearheaded way, Andre probably thought that this was just a cool curiosity. His publicity/manager/etc. thought that it would be a good way to drum up visibility. I can't imagine that he anticipated any sort of blowback. 

I don't know Andre, I don't know his mode of thinking in this case, so all of this is purely speculative. But he seems to be squarely situated in that stage of his career where he'd rather be regarded as an artistic figure or creative doyen than a hip-hop icon. I mean, more power to him, but his hip-hop career was already a perfect container for exploration. The Love Below had a drum and bass version of "My Favorite Things," and it's spectacular. Producers like Madlib or itinerant drummer Karriem Riggins do random jazz/improv shit all the time. Kendrick was rapping over modern straight-ahead jazz on To Pimp A Butterfly. You can operate outside of the strictures or even pressures of your genre and still give maximum effort. It's really the laziness of all this that has been raising so many hackles. 

[Ken Dryden]

Andre 3000’s piano playing should be taken about as seriously as Hunter Biden’s paintings.

Andre 3000 sounds like the name of a low budget sci-fi flick.

[JSngry]

40 minutes ago, ep1str0phy said:

Producers like Madlib or itinerant drummer Karriem Riggins do random jazz/improv shit all the time.

Kareem was Artist In Residence two years ago at the Detroit Jazz Festival. Opening night he did a set with a band that included Madlib. That was some tight shit!

[mjazzg]

And it seems that Shipp has a new release himself to promote...

here's hoping his new found exposure shifts some extra units with all the Andre3000 fans buying it

[Rabshakeh]

Joking aside, I wonder whether the new (not actually new) combative approach taken by Shipp and Lowe etc on social media might help raise the profile and energy level of the music? 

My AI marketing phrase generator tells me that viral social media dunks on establishment power structures are Big! Right! Now!. 

If it does help put a spotlight on this kind of music, that would be great. As my father (a retailer) used to say, goods never sold from a stockroom (not in fact true for the era of Amazon and Ikea, as my father himself was sadly to learn, but the concept still holds). You do have to merchandise yourself. 

Edited May 17 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

We need more music as lifestyle signifier!!!!!!🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔥🔂

[Rooster_Ties]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

We need more music as lifestyle signifier!!!!!!🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔥🔂

Didn’t that used to be CD’s you bought from Starbucks??