I HATE SMOOTH JAZZ!!!!!!!!!!

[misanthrope]

AAAAAAAARRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! It is crap, garbage, pablum, swill, ear pudding, refuse, and criminal. I would dearly love to see Boney James in Abu Ghraib, or Kenny G at Camp X-Ray!

The Rippingtons? Rip'em a new one!

David Benoit and Michael Franks should be a barbecue side dish for cannibals!

Labeling that spineless excuse for music as "jazz" is akin to calling Bill Monroe "Baroque" or Charles Ives "bluegrass." It's not jazz. It's instrumental R&B, or New Age, or even "easy listening," but IT'S NOT JAZZ!!!

No swing (dominant and plastic syncopation)? No blues tonality? No sense of adventure? No growth from that tradition? Then, no dice. No jazz.

However, their insistence on horning in on the jazz idiom is disconcerting. Why not simply accept the need for new classification and just be done with it? Early jazz artists were more than eager to stop being called "ragtime." You don't see hip-hop artists telling people "Hell, no we're 'Contemporary Rhythm & Blues'!"

So what's the point? Why don't these cats get their own classification and leave jazz fans alone? My suspicion is that they are trying to cash in on some type of cachet surrounding jazz. And, that, in no way, is a genuine or honest motive.

So, with that in mind: SCREW YOU, KENNY GORELICK AND PROGENY!

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Won't Get Any Argument From Me

Music for Yuppies who think it's cool to like jazz, but really don't understand it well enough to REALLY like jazz. Boring, trite, and uninteresting.
The Professor

[bif]

2. I call that crap Jazzak.

Can't stand it either. I hate it when someone tells me they're into jazz. and when asked who they like they say, Kenny G, Boney James and all the Jazzak players.

[coloradodem2005]

10. fuzak. Because it is supposedly based on fusion.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

19. haha, perfect name. jazzak!

:silly:

[bif]

31. Obviously a cross between jazz and muzak

[SheepyMcSheepster]

3. agreed. not much else to say.

it sucks.

[GOPisEvil]

4. I agree wholeheartedly!

:boring:

Smooth jazz is boring and unemotional for the most part. Blech.

[southpaw]

5. Does Spiro Gyra count as smooth jazz?

A high school buddy used to bore the shit out of me with that insipid swill..

[ProfessorGAC]

They're Dangerously Close

Better than Kenny G, not as good as Rippingtons, but not close to Weather Report or Return to Forever. Almost smooth jazz.
The Professor

[southpaw]

15. I actually saw the Rippingtons at Auburn University

back in '92 or '93... They were really up-beat and fairly rythmic. I found them entertaining and quite instrumentally dexterous. They reminded me of Chuck Mangione in his heyday. Or a cross between Mangione and Eric Johnson...

Not a bad experience, but not one I would go out of my way to have again.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. They're OK. Technically Proficient

Musically a little samey.
The Professor

[misanthrope]

24. Van Cliburn's technically proficient...

...but he's not "jazz."

[bif]

7. We used to call them Spiro Gyros

n/t

[Lautremont]

6. It's what you get when you cross jazz with

laxatives.

[wtmusic]

8. I love it

It helps me forget there's anything wrong...the world is just a big cocktail party, with a little tushie-wiggle thrown in

[Insider]

13. me too

maybe those guys are successful because enough OTHER people like their crap/garbage/junk/etc.

i love joe sample, earl klugh, george benson, bob james, and many more. they can sell me their cds anyday.

[misanthrope]

Fine enough...

...people liked Ferrante & Teicher, and Ray Coniff, too, but they weren't trying to push themselves as first cousins to Horace Silver or Charles Mingus.

There's something innately duplicitous about it, and it stinks.

[misanthrope]

40. Plenty of people...

...buy crap. McDonald's, Wal-Mart, reality television, home shopping network, you name it.

Debbie Boone had more in hit record sales than Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie combined. Does that make "You Light Up My Life" more important than "Ko-Ko" or "Night In Tunisia"?

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -H. L. Mencken

[ronzo]

54. Loves me some Bob James...

I'm serious... always have. My wife calls it "dentist office jazz" and doesn't care for it... to each.

[DemExpat]

18. I love some of it as well.....

and find it very relaxing as background music for doing other things.

DemEx

[coloradodem2005]

9. I agree.

Your last point about a new classification is definitely a good point. As for a name, call it Fuzak.


Fuzak-this stuff is supposedly based on fusion (jazz/rock) even though it is watered down trash.

[Radical Activist]

11. I like it rough too

This modern smooth jazz stuff is garbage, I agree. Give me old time rough jazz and I'm happy.

[mmm]

12. Alto sax plays with drum machine and sequenced bass

I can hear it already:
C13
Bm7
Em7
A13

Yuppies love it, of course.
It's the label on an empty bottle
of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

[Leprechan29]

14. Don't know much about "Smooth Jazz"

"No blues tonality?"

But, the Blues are separate from Jazz (the development anyway). Again, I admit being ignorant to alot of Modern Jazz though

[misanthrope]

20. Blues tonality...

...is reference to the use of quarter notes (or "blue notes") in scale. You've heard them all your life and don't realize it.

And, yes, blues is different than jazz, mainly in its rhythmic patterns. However, blues is one of the components in jazz.

[Leprechan29]

23. Gotcha

Brain mix-up; I realize the connections with scales, but in a moment of stupidity, thought you meant rhythmic patterns.

Thanks for the pointer though. I get mixed up with terminology occasionally.

[1gobluedem]

16. I work at a REAL jazz radio station

Once we blew up a Kenny G record during a pledge drive. We play the real stuff; Monk, Miles, Coltrane, Dizzy, Ellington, Ella, Billie, etc. 30,000 CDs worth.

Cuban and Brazilian too.

[sangh0]

21. I sympathize, but disagree

Lately I've been getting into "soul-jazz". Mostly three-piece organ bands (organ, horn, and drums). In their day, "real" jazz lovers dissed them as shallow, formulaic, etc, much as you do, but the artistry is there. It's just more subtle.

Remember, for every Michael Bolton, there are a thousand Bolton-wannabees who failed because they just didn't have whatever it is that Michael Bolton has, whatever that may be.

[misanthrope]

22. "Whatever that may be"...

Good marketing.

[sangh0]

27. Audience says!

"That's the #2 response. #1 is 'good hair/rug'"

[misanthrope]

29. A buddy of mine...

...looked at me one day as some boy band was on the tube talking about themselves and asked, "Do you think Coltrane worried about his abs?"

LOL!

[bif]

34. Trane worriied about where is next hit of smack was coming from.

n/t

[misanthrope]

39. Ask Elvin Jones or Pharoah Sanders...

...how much smack 'Trane was running through when they were together.

Your statement doesn't reflect kindly on your knowledge of Coltrane...or a lot of other things, either.

[bif]

43. Really?

First of all, I'm a huge John Coltrane fan. I have a ton of his recordings up until he went way out there around 1964 or 65. Trane=God.

Also, he was very into heroin in the 50's as many musicians on the Prestige label were. In fact, it was nicknamed "The Junkie" label. Miles Davis fired him from his group in 1957 because he felt he was too into heroin and it was affecting his performances. .

[misanthrope]

44. So that means...

...that you are aware he kicked that habit a good decade before his liver wigged out on him, but you chose to ignore such?

Or that you knew that it was the influence of Philly Joe Jones, who was like a Pied Piper of Smack in those days, that contributed strongly to the "habits" within that group, and others he played with?

Or that Miles was a big ol' hypocrite who bragged about his kicking heroin, but failed to note the cocaine habit he supplanted it with?

Or that you were aware of the spiritual awakening he experienced in the last decade of his life, and that he stated as his life's goal that he "wanted to be a force for 'good,'" but you chose to portray him as being closer to Bird's example?

[bif]

46. Or that I was merely making a smart-ass comment

I didn't think that I accidently entered GD by mistake.

[FlashHarry]

55. Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith, John Patton, et al.

Love that stuff. And, yes, it was dismissed as 'simplistic' by the high-brow jazzbos at the time, e.g. Jimmy Smith's Verve albums versus his Blue Note albums.

[fudge stripe cookays]

25. Move to Dallas.

We have an entire station in that format.

<cheesy radio voice> The Oasis. Smoooooth Jazzzzz. </cheesy radio voice>

I spent the weekend with a friend of mine a couple years ago when I was looking for a place to live, and she kept it on all weekend. Arrrrgh!

[coloradodem2005]

28. We have one like that in Denver too.

[coloradodem2005]

26. I like it.

It goes well with Porn. j/k :evilgrin:

[NashVegas]

30. Jazz Snobs Are Much Worse Than Smooth Jazz

Personally I prefer the hardcore stuff, but the only thing more annoying than Kenny G. is an afficianado who tries to limit jazz by defining it.

However, I suspect you'll love this Richard Thompson song :)

I AGREE WITH PAT METHENEY

[fudge stripe cookays]

32. Did you see "Jerry McGuire?"

Renee Zellweger's nanny ("I prefer 'child technician') was freaking hilarious, always going on about Miles Davis. Definite jazz snob. But hilarious.

[misanthrope]

33. Or one...

...who actually knows how to spell "aficionado," huh?

Tell me something, I heard some music the other day, don't know the artist(s) name, so how shall I find it?

Also, I saw some announcements for musical concerts. The costs of the shows are such that I can only afford to go to one of them. That also makes it important that I get my money's worth. How am I to discern what will fit within my musical tastes?

[NashVegas]

35. Actually

We're both wrong:

afficionado is correct.

touché

[misanthrope]

38. Think so?...

Main Entry: afi·cio·na·do
Pronunciation: -'nä-(")dO
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -dos
Etymology: Spanish, from past participle of aficionar to inspire affection, from afición affection, from Latin affection-, affectio —more at AFFECTION
Date: 1845
: a person who likes, knows about, and appreciates a usually fervently pursued interest or activity : DEVOTEE <aficionados of the bullfight> <movie aficionados>

Pronunciation Key

© 2001 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
Merriam-Webster Privacy Policy


By the way, you didn't answer my two questions.

[NashVegas]

41. Both Ways

Are accepted.

I'm starting to agree with your point about it, however. Annoying, indeed.

By the way, you didn't answer my two questions.

Because your questions were irrelevant. Using description to find out what an unknown is differs from attempting to define what a thing is. The map is not the territory.

[misanthrope]

49. I've yet to find...

...a dictionary with another spelling. Please give me a reference.

If you think those questions are irrelevant, then you miss the point altogether. There are valid reasons for musical classifications.

Maybe they should outlaw any and all musical descriptions, dispense of reviews since they seek to quantify things. While we're at it, let's do way with packaging, make that verboten. Maybe we should just encase all music in plain brown wrappers, with no information on the outside except performers and titles. Unless of course, the song titles have a way of hinting at what type music might be contained within, then we have to get rid of that too.

After all, we don't want anyone making any judgements.

"Using description to find out what an unknown is differs from attempting to define what a thing is." Are you serious? "Description to discover an unknown" IS definition.

[NashVegas]

52. If it means that much to you

WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

And once again: the map is not the territory.

[bif]

42. Here are ways to check out music beforehand

You can go to http://www.allmusic.com They have good bios and descriptions of just about any musician/group that ever existed. Also, you can download music from Limewire and check it out. Also, post a message like: "Has anyone heard of these groups and what do they sound like?" As fas as hearing music and not knowing the artist, if it's a public radio station, they usually have logs on thir website you can tap into. If they're commercial, you can call the station and ask them what they were playing at a certain time. Or if you caught the name of the song or album, check out allmusic.com and search by song/album. Good luck!

[coloradodem2005]

36. Well, music snobs can be really irritating.

But, I am sorry. I try not to be too snobby and while I like innovation in many forms of music, I do not like watered-down commercial music that gets passed off as the genuine article.

[NashVegas]

37. Too True

I'm one myself, most of the time. Or at least when someone tries to make me listen to crap, or promote it.

[1gobluedem]

51. A jazz fan I know

... once mentioned a conversation Ken Burns had on some PBS talk show not long after 'Ken Burns' Jazz' documentary was released. He said when he sat down to work on 'The Civil War,' he got a bunch of experts (yes, I know that's subjective too) together, they put an outline together and proceeded. Same for 'Baseball' (again, I know there were a lot of baseball fans who hated that documentary).

When he got ready to do 'Jazz' he sat down with a bunch of jazz experts and they couldn't agree on one thing. That's jazz.

[otohara]

45. I Worked For Smooth Jazz Station

imagine having to pretend like you love it everyday! Yeah, it's great!

[Taverner]

47. Pat Metheny on Kenny G

"Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.

I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.

But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.

Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement. "

<snip>


http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm

[misanthrope]

50. I've had that...

...bookmarked for years now. I love it! You go, Pat!!

[Rabrrrrrr]

48. Ewwwww. Oh, how I hate it as well.

:shudder:

[NightTrain]

53. What bugs me about so-called "smooth jazz" radio is that...

...they mix in stuff that even a jazz know-nothing couldn't possibly mistake for jazz. "What A Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers, for example. :wtf:

[misanthrope]

58. Well according to some here,...

...including those fond of shortening, we have no right to say the Doobies aren't jazz.

[ronzo]

56. Anybody out there have one of the "Flim and the Bbs" CDs?

:hi:

Spyro Gyra was the missing link between acid jazz and adult-contemp jazz, sez I.

[nini]

57. Simple Solution - DON'T LISTEN TO IT

:eyes:

[misanthrope]

59. Easier said than done...

...Unfortunately, as the founder and president of a jazz society, and the official "jazznik" at the radio station where I work, it's kind of difficult to avoid.

We have endless offerings of music here which bill themselves as jazz, but then you turn on the show, or get to the concert, and it's that "smooth" junk. It has turned into a very problematic phenomenon and one which is nearly impossible to battle. It's everywhere and the few jazz fans that are here are extremely frustrated by it.

It is something that, unabated, might finally accomplish what a lot of "swing" in the 30s and 40s never did: it will kill jazz.