That was my immediate impression of his music. It feels strangely cold and extremely "produced", especially when he has made stabs at jazz, a genre that is in many cases "music for musicians". For a genre that prizes free flowing interpretation and individual creativity alongside instrumental virtuosity, his jazz music comes out utterly sterile compared to other modern jazz musicians. The same goes for his soul music. Everything he does feels like an exercise in a genre rather than playing
in it.
Compare his stuff to the work of Kamasi Washington, Mary Halvorson's groups, or Shabaka Hutchings, or Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, and you hear an enormous difference in the sheer craft of songwriting, emotional dynamics, and storytelling through their instruments.
He's clearly a virtuoso at a kind of playing the instrument, and he's extremely good at explaining music theory and concepts, which is a rather archaic and unique language all its own, but I don't think he's quite there yet for songwriting.
Compare his stuff to the work of Kamasi Washington, Mary Halvorson's groups, or Shabaka Hutchings, or Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, and you hear an enormous difference in the sheer craft of songwriting, emotional dynamics, and storytelling through their instruments.
He's clearly a virtuoso at a kind of playing the instrument, and he's extremely good at explaining music theory and concepts, which is a rather archaic and unique language all its own, but I don't think he's quite there yet for songwriting.