Near the end of the old millennium, someone once rapped, "Being futuristic these days means being futuristic on your own terms," which is entirely fitting when said rapper records an album of solo piano instrumentals. (Perhaps less instructive is what said rapper went on to say: "Being futuristic means loving worms, saving your sperm, wearing your pubes in a perm.") The former
Chilly Gonzales has a hint of
Gershwin in his playing, an urbane, contemplative take on the
blues that sometime turns into a wry smile. He also has a hint of
Satie, the spare and haunted sound of a music box turning slowly to a halt as it comes to the end of its wind. But what he also has is entirely his own, which not only makes this the best album of solo piano instrumentals by a rapper extant but also one of the finest solo piano albums not by a
jazz or
classical performer. Obviously, there's a duality to any man who lit up stages with
Peaches but also played with and produced
Jane Birkin and
Charles Aznavour, but
Solo Piano is a disarmingly wonderful record. ~ John Bush
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