The Travesty of "Smooth Jazz"

Back in 1990 I had the pleasure of taking a class at San Francisco State on the history of Jazz. It was taught by Grover Sales who had a unique and personal history with the music, and who taught the subject with more passion than I've seen from a teacher in many years. Mr Sales has since passed away but here's an obit from the San Francisco Chronicle; he was one of a kind and I'll never forget how much I learned in that class. And I still recall the first statement he made on day one of class: "Jazz is NOT popular music". I've come to regard this as the Grover Sales Axiom.


Jazz has never really reached the mass market in the same way as popular music has, so it was probably only natural that some day someone would try to combine the two worlds of popular music and jazz to create a more marketable sub genre of Jazz.


When Miles Davis recorded his landmark "Bitches Brew" album in 1970, he was regarded as the first to meld (or "fuse") the improvisational aspects of Jazz with modern instrumentation and styles that were popular at the time (yes, I know this point is debatable...the CTI label was churning out pop/jazz music around the same time, but Miles took it to another level). Many critics complained that Davis sold out with this new direction he was taking, but that was Miles: he never stuck with the same style of music for very long. He was always pushing, always changing styles. However, when I listen to the "Bitches Brew"-era Miles, I still hear an honesty of a musician unafraid to push boundaries and challenge a listener's expectations. And I can still hear the improvisation, freedom, and interplay with his band that (to me) are the hallmarks of what Jazz is really all about. Miles never sold out; he was always charting new directions until the day he died.

The trend that Miles started was continued by other popular "fusion" bands in the early 1970s, most notably by supergroups like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever. The essentials of Jazz remained firmly in place on these recordings and these groups did much to expand on the groundwork that Miles had laid. However, like anything good that sticks around for a while, someone will come along and try to exploit it even further and end up creating a monster. It's arguable as to when exactly the genre of "smooth jazz" was created, but some of the earliest groups to capitalize on the sound (such as Spyro Gyra and The Jeff Lorber Fusion) started around the mid-1970s.

The difference to me between these bands and the other Fusion giants of the previous years was several-fold: the improvising was toned down, the music was unadventurous and not challenging to the listener, and the commercialism was turned way, way up. Probably the most egregious examples of the "new fusion" were guys like Chuck Mangione, Earl Klugh, and even (as much as I hate to say it) George Benson - a brilliant jazz guitarist who ventured into the "crossover" territory for years before making his money and then finally returning to his jazz roots.

The smooth jazz trend continued into the early 1980s with the formation of GRP Records, a label started by Dave Grusin and which featured primarily (though not exclusively) smooth jazz artists such as Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, turning smooth jazz into a multi-million dollar enterprise. But nobody is entitled to wear the crown of smooth jazz as much as one Kenny Gorelick, formerly a member of the Jeff Lorber Fusion band - later to be known as Kenny G.

Kenny G is every musician's favorite target to criticize - not because of his success (I wouldn't begrudge anyone who has "made it" in the music field...more power to them), but because he continuously promotes the same banal, mind-numbing, dumbed-down and most sterile music since I once heard a muzak version of "Play That Funky Music" in a supermarket. And Kenny G has indeed made millions off this genre. His albums have sold many millions, many times over. Compare this with the pioneers of jazz who came decades before him: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk...even going back further to Bix Beiderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton, James P Johnson, Louis Armstrong...I am willing to bet that all of these masters combined could not outsell the tripe that Kenny G puts out year after year. Pat Metheny (one of my top 10 favorite guitarists) posted a now-famous diatribe about Kenny G, after KG cut a track of himself playing over a Louis Armstrong record...which Metheny basically considered a sacrilege.

Nobody understands this market better than Kenny himself. There is definitely an audience for background instrumental pop that doesn't challenge or offend, doesn't force the listener to really listen, and I don't have a problem with anyone who purchases this dreck - only don't call it Jazz because it's not Jazz. Smooth jazz, as a genre, to me means: boring chord changes (usually a variant of a II-V-I sequence repeated ad nauseum), boring and repetitive solos that don't tell a story or go anywhere, and no interplay among the musicians. In fact, a lot of the examples of this genre sound like sampled rhythms; I wonder if some of them even use real players. The biggest issue for me is that this is what passes today as "jazz". It's not Jazz...just apply the Grover Sales Axiom: Kenny G is popular and he plays "smooth jazz". The Axiom says "Jazz is NOT popular music". I have therefore proven that smooth jazz is not really "jazz" :)

Having said all of the above, I will admit that there are some seriously good players in the smooth jazz arena. I've seen a few of them live, playing in mostly non-"smooth" situations, and some of them can hold their own with any type of music. Lee Ritenour is one of them. Pianist David Benoit is another. I just think it's unfortunate that the music-buying public probably wouldn't buy their stuff if they played more challenging music, so they continue to record the stuff that will sell. Occasionally, however, they will venture into some real Jazz territory; these albums may not sell as much but it's nice for a change.

So call it what it is: instrumental pop, improvisational R&B, instrumental-lite...please just don't call it Jazz. Go back and listen to some of the old masters mentioned above and you'll be able to hear the difference. And again, if you're really into Kenny G and I've offended, my apologies. This blog entry was just meant to inform and I hope I've done that.

A friend and fellow musician, Tony Frye, recently posted on his Facebook wall that 80% of the "Jazz" section of his local used record store was taken up by Kenny G and the Manhattan Transfer. That's a sad commentary, and his post is what inspired me to write this blog entry (thanks, Tony!). By the way, Tony keeps an excellent music blog here - check it out!