Review: LEGO Ideas 21334 Jazz Quartet

Today we are quickly interested in the content of the LEGO Ideas set 21334 Jazz Quartet, a box of 1606 pieces which will be available at the retail price of €99.99 from June 28, 2022 (VIP preview). This new reference from the LEGO Ideas range is inspired by the project initially submitted on the platform by Hsinwei Chi whose proposal had easily found its audience and gathered the 10.000 supporters essential for its passage into the review phase before being definitively validated by LEGO in October 2021.

As I said when announcing the product, I think that the modifications made by the designer in charge of converting the initial idea into an official product are not in the best taste. They do not restore in my opinion the original intention and all the dynamics and the atmosphere of the realization which served to gather the 10.000 supports pass a little by the wayside.

You will have to be a fan of the assembly of stylized brick-based characters to appreciate this product which at least has the merit of exploring an original approach and different from that of the usual products. Even if the two creations seem similar, the four musicians gone through the LEGO grinder immediately seem much coarser than those of the reference creation: the clips in matching colors which knew how to be rather discreet on the limbs of the musicians are replaced here by Ball Seals gray which are fairly noticeable. The slender, wiry characters with homogeneous assemblies only become more clumsy and look like, on arrival, simple articulated figurines vaguely clinging to their instruments. That's a shame.

The manufacturer will invoke, as often, the need to offer a construction experience offering a result of solidity and stability in accordance with its requirements to justify this modification, but it would perhaps have been necessary to assess the feasibility of such a solution in more depth. project before selecting it rather than spoiling it on arrival. The official version is not subtle, it simply imitates the original idea by removing all the poetry that emerged from the original staging.

On the side of this famous "experience" of construction that LEGO puts forward for its products, customers will be served with the possibility of assembling this box to four thanks to the five booklets provided: each musician and his instrument benefits from a booklet of dedicated instructions, the fifth volume serving to bring together the four subsets. Each of the members of this quartet is assembled with its part of the stage, it is then necessary to assemble the various modules to obtain the planned presentation. Only one possible configuration, the trumpeter and the double bass player cannot be removed from their base portion.

A positive point: we take pleasure in assembling the double bass, the drums and the piano, with very original techniques and a neat appearance. Things get tough when it comes to tackling the four musicians who become a bit paunchy, caricatural in some places and frankly rude in others. the trumpeter and the double bass player do well, the first being upright with a pose without too exotic angles and the second being concealed behind his instrument. The drummer suffers a little more from the conversion with coarse legs and a head that is too "cartoon" for the subject matter.

Looking more closely, we see that the instruments are the elements that are most faithful to the original project and I have the impression that LEGO has reversed the concept: Hsinwei Chi put the musicians at the center of its creation and the instruments were at their service. Here it's a bit the opposite, the designer has put the package on the instruments and the four characters only seem there to furnish. It's a very personal perception of the difference in approach between the two creators, but it's my feeling after a few days spent in the company of this construction.

The designer in charge of the file was not content to "reinterpret" the physique of the musicians, he also replaced the original pianist with a female character. We can see a tribute to female legends of Jazz like Nina Simone, Alice Coltrane or even Geri Allen, but this is once again not the original intention. The original idea did not claim to serve as an exhaustive and definitive product to the glory of the musical genre in question, it was simply a question of staging a group of anonymous jazzmen among many others, without reference direct.

LEGO therefore appropriates the subject a little and adds a touch of diversity to it, it is de rigueur at the moment, but the female character is not even successful with an illegible head, a failed neck and an unmodifiable posture which is no longer really in the poetic spirit of the original idea. All that for this.

The stage with a dark floor and finely integrated borders that helped to highlight the four musicians in the reference project becomes here a lighter floor with a much less accomplished finish. As I said when announcing the set, we lose the cozy atmosphere of the original project and it's really a shame. The few apparent studs on the official version do nothing, except to spoil the visual rendering of the whole thing a little more.

What I remember from this product: a few modifications are enough to remove everything that allows a creation to convey an emotion or a feeling and make it much less attractive. Some of the adaptations present in the official version were undoubtedly necessary for the product to comply with the specifications defined by LEGO, but others which seem to me to be solely a matter of a very arbitrary aesthetic choice only sabotage the atmosphere that the fan designer had been able to breathe into his work.

Many fans will be satisfied with the official version knowing that the set is on arrival rather pleasant to watch and that it will only cost them a hundred euros, but others will necessarily be sensitive to the impact of the different modifications made by the designer. As is often the case in the LEGO Ideas ecosystem, when the initial idea is really too accomplished, we take the risk of being ultimately a little disappointed by LEGO's vision. This is in my opinion the case here, LEGO having as expected and expected kept the original idea but having completely distorted the project by depriving it of its very special atmosphere.

Note: The set presented here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at July 5, 2022 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.