Tell me why I shouldn't like smooth jazz!

[Gentle Giant]

I've never been to a "Smooth Jazz" concert. It's difficult to imagine but with enough substance enhancement it would probably be better than most staff meetings at work.

I love Larry Carlton to death, especially his session work of course, but I have a few of his albums and have seen him twice. Live and on record are two completely different experiences. On stage, he just burns and watching him you don't even notice the swishy keyboard washes in the background.

[Xavier]

So what's his best CD?

[Gentle Giant]

Of his solo albums, I'd first recommend a live one, Last Nite, on which he plays two Miles tunes: So What and All Blues. From the studio stuff, it's a little tough because all of them are flawed. He's a great artist to make a compilation of. But Friends has a lot of good moments, including guest turns by BB King and Al Jarreau. On Solid Ground isn't great, but his covers of Layla and Steely Dan's Josie are fun. An earlier one, Larry Carlton, is good, too. When he went to GRP in the early 90s I stopped listening so I don't have a handle on his more recent material.

I know there's a live video of him and he does some amazing solos, one in particular from his acoustic album, Alone But Never Alone, that is so far superior to the studio version as to make it completely obsolete. A friend of mine had it, and I don't remember the name of the video.

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

I'm not ready to buy up the entire Kenny G collection cd by cd, but I will declare that "I am not smarter than a fifth grader" and that "smooth jazz rocks!".

[CatBenson]

I was in the hotel where my brother-in-law stayed over Thanksgiving. In the lobby they had a calendar rag for our town with Walter Beasley on the cover. The article inside was an interesting read. Walter doesn't consider his music to be jazz, rather a form of watered down R&B.

I learned that he's a professor at Berklee College of Music. Not to shabby for a smooth jazz guy.

I often wonder if smooth gets a bad rap because it's compared to regular jazz. How does it stack up against the blues? The blues gets a lot of respect in this jazz corner, but is it more difficult to master than smooth jazz? I'm not sure it is. My impression is that the harmonies are more difficult to master in smooth jazz, the rhythms are about the same - perhaps an edge to the blues. Melodies are equally compelling in both genres.

I suppose once you get to the pinnacle in any musical genre that they're all difficult to master well.

I went through my collection of recordings. I have a Donald Duck CD and an Abby and Norm CD, both of which I consider smooth. That's it.

[clinthopson]

The primary reason for the existence of smuuuth is so that us ultra-hip types can look down at something.

[groover]

I was in the hotel where my brother-in-law stayed over Thanksgiving. In the lobby they had a calendar rag for our town with Walter Beasley on the cover. The article inside was an interesting read. Walter doesn't consider his music to be jazz, rather a form of watered down R&B.

Bingo!

[Bill Barton]

The primary reason for the existence of smuuuth is so that us ultra-hip types can look down at something.

Something (someone) besides Wynton?

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

The forecast calls for smooth!!

[Dr Dave]

Lenny, I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but this is how it is: Smooth Jazz is Product. It is made to make money. It may also have artistic merit, but the intent is to make money.

You could say it's like rock'n'roll: The motivation is to make money; whether it turns out to be art as well is beside the point.

Jazz is art; if it also makes money, that's terrific, but that's not the original motivation.

[groover]

I don't think that's strictly true, Dr Dave. A lot of the smooth jazzers were raised on old school R & B and seem to genuinely enjoy playing accessible, groove-heavy, dance-oriented music. I'm thinking of Jeff Lorber, Boney James, Richard Elliot (from Tower of Power), et al.

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

Lenny, I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but this is how it is: Smooth Jazz is Product. It is made to make money. It may also have artistic merit, but the intent is to make money.

You could say it's like rock'n'roll: The motivation is to make money; whether it turns out to be art as well is beside the point.

Jazz is art; if it also makes money, that's terrific, but that's not the original motivation.

David,
You're preaching to the choir. Old Lenny was just pulling your femur.

[Frisco]

As Zappa might have said
You should put it on your hair
Not your cd player

I remember him saying something about Disco in the 70's that might apply as well. Something to the effect that he thought it were useful in the sense that you could have it playing and still be able to have conversations, work, read, etc...without having to pay much attention to it.

I always like washing dishes to the sounds of smooth jazz. It makes for a happy experience.

[Gary Sisco]

Disco was meant to be functional. Dance music. Historically, much of music has been made for social function.

Smooth is, too. The same social function EZ Listening played for my father. He kept his car radio tuned to that crap and whistled aimlessly on top of it while driving, a free improv whistler without even knowing it.

[Uli]

[gonzo]

uli, go to you tube and look up dave douglas and watch some of his videos.

[GoodSpeak]

Disco was drone symptom music: Make a beat, dance to it....then repeat as many times as is humanly possible on a single recording.


Runway model music.


Smooth Jazz, however, was an outcropping [albeit, recording company corporate money making thinking] of Funk, Rock and Jazz Fusion.

The early Fusion stuff sold like hotcakes.


The problem came when the faceless three-piece suits in the boardroom decided it could be a big-time cash cow. After all, Disco was dead, they had to do something to bring back the musically illiterate. I mean, Heavens! The Suits could lose some money or even [dare I say it?] their corporate health club pass and yearly trip to Tahiti! [*GASP*]


Disco/Smooth Jazz was born out of greed and wanton disregard for musicianship.




Give me a drum loop, and I'll show you a recording company greed-head.

[Flamjam]

I am not a big fan of smooth jazz. I tend to lean toward the more "raw" sound of a tinny, highly tuned small Gretsch kit, and a band being recorded with only a few well-placed microphones in the room.

That being said - I do appreciate some of the smooth jazz artists. Larry Carlton and The Rippingtons have caught my ear from time to time.

One off-hand point: Some of the smooth jazz radio stations play stuff that they classify as "smooth jazz" - but is really well-constructed rock and R & B. Steely Dan and the Michael McDonald era of the Doobie Brother DOES NOT classify as "smooth jazz" - in my humble opinion...

[groover]

I was scanning the airwaves in my car yesterday and it came to rest on a station that was labelled "Jazz" in the display, playing Boz Scaggs "Dirty Lowdown".

I hadn't heard that tune in many years and by coincidence was thinking of it recently as something I might give a fresh listen to hear a vintage example of a reasonably authentic disco-funk bass line, so I listened to the whole tune before I put a CD on. The brief rock guitar solo in it is very well played, too.

[gonzo]

because i said so.......

[Ron Thorne]

Groover-

Some artists defy strict categorization. Boz Scaggs is one of them, in my view. I've dug him for decades.

A few others:

David Byrne
Kenny Rankin
Joe Jackson

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

So.. what's the verdict, does smooth jazz rock?

[stonemonkts]

Like a cradle full of warm manure.

[Runawayjazz]

Where does one find a smooth jazz radio station? Rarer than hen's teeth.

[Ron Thorne]

Where does one find a smooth jazz radio station? Rarer than hen's teeth.

It's not nearly as rare as you may expect, especially since it's been given a new category ... Contemporary Jazz.

http://www.live365.com/index.live

Go nuts, kid!

[shades of blue]

Like a cradle full of warm manure.

brilliant ^



made me laugh that

[Alino]

Like a cradle full of warm manure.

In Italy there's a say: from diamonds grows nothing; from manure flowers grow.

That said it does not applyes at all to smooth jazz -maybe upside down?- whose shiny product presentation, seductive, fashion like really glitters to present nothing inside but the image of a product, an idea like D&G clothes.

Why should you not listen to this music? Well really why not? Maybe, for me not to waste time only, being a waterered derivative of the plainest easiest infinite declination of afro-american classical music called jazz. IF your enphasis is about enjoying having on the background lift- dishes washing- flirting- dentist- spot music so there's nothing to criticize. You are not talking about music to live, to meditate to felt provoked or to listen to with the soul and the brain, but a sound around to be kept repetitive soft and assuring. This may well be not the best place and the people to talk about music as such but as Zappa I can admit it is a 'really efficient' kind of product from a rotten tradition I keep finding interesting and immensely strong.

[stonemonkts]

In Italy there's a say: from diamonds grows nothing; from manure flowers grow.

That said it does not applyes at all to smooth jazz -maybe upside down?- whose shiny product presentation, seductive, fashion like really glitters to present nothing inside but the image of a product, an idea like D&G clothes.

Why should you not listen to this music? Well really why not? Maybe, for me not to waste time only, being a waterered derivative of the plainest easiest infinite declination of afro-american classical music called jazz. IF your enphasis is about enjoying having on the background lift- dishes washing- flirting- dentist- spot music so there's nothing to criticize. You are not talking about music to live, to meditate to felt provoked or to listen to with the soul and the brain, but a sound around to be kept repetitive soft and assuring. This may well be not the best place and the people to talk about music as such but as Zappa I can admit it is a 'really efficient' kind of product from a rotten tradition I keep finding interesting and immensely strong.

I'd rather listen to ambient or techno or industrial or baroque or anything else except "smooth" jazz as background music. That is just me. I am sure one less fan won't hurt the genre.

[Dr Dave]

So.. what's the verdict, does smooth jazz rock?

Dunno, but I'm pretty sure this thread has beaten the subject into submission.

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

Dr. Dave, how's it going with your band? I've been playing my Fender strat almost exclusively lately, mostly blues and jazz. My chops are returning quite nicely after about 3-4 months of inactivity.