Smooth Jazz is Jazz

[Savage_Dreams]

Ive never denied its jazz. doesnt mean im going to like it, and i like jazz.

all genres can have extreme examples. from the most original sounding artists at one end to the most accessible and commercial one at the other end.

 

[brianrost]

This brings the "G" question. Is he playing Jazz too? *brings out popcorn*

Go watch the documentary and check out what he did before he became the poster child for smooth jazz. He doesn't consider himself a jazz player anyway. I don't listen to him unless he comes on the radio, but I have respect for any musician that can become that successful.

 

[Koshchei]

I'm pretty sure "Metal" players would disagree. Yngwie would probably fight you over that statement.

I met him in Toronto many moons ago... he's an intelligent guy with a very dry wit. While there are things I disagree with him on, I don't think that this is something he'd Unleash the Fury over. He likes Deep Purple or Hendrix as much as anybody of that generation.

 

[brianrost]

Smooth jazz is just another subgenre that appeals to a certain group of people. Along with "acid jazz" it's just one in a long line of disrespected styles.

How about the "soul jazz" that was popular in the 60s and 70s...Herbie Mann, Eddie Harris, Les McCann, Bobbie Humphrey, Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd, Hubert Laws, Earl Klugh, King Curtis, Ramsey Lewis, Vince Guaraldi or any number of CTI artists?

Or the organ combo explosion after Jimmy Smith came along in the late 50s...Groove Holmes, Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff, Johnny Hammond, etc.

Or the "honker" saxophonists who straddled jazz and R&B like Big JayMcNeely, Hal Singer, Lee Allen, "Sam the Man" Taylor, Sil Austin, Willis Jackson, Arnett Cobb, etc.

Consider that Chet Baker sold a lot more records where he was singing than the ones where he just played trumpet.

All that stuff was derided by jazz critics but sold a lot of records and was on jukeboxes and the radio. After hip-hoppers started sampling the grooves off those records, there's been a lot of reconsideration. Not all jazz has to be cutting edge, not everyone is Miles, Duke, Bird or Coltrane.

 

[KenD]

Let's start a real flame war: hard bop is atonal cacophony.

 

[micguy]

Let's start a real flame war: hard bop is atonal cacophony.

i predict you're gonna find 2 people that disagree with that.

 

[brianrost]

IMHO, smooth jazz is somewhat misleading. Not all "smooth jazz" is elevator music.

We have to remember that smooth jazz grew out of the fusion period. No one would call the Tony Williams Lifetime, The Mahavishnu Orchestra or 70s Miles Davis smooth, but after Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" launched a funky strain of fusion everything changed. The path from CTI to GRP to Kenny G was almost inevitable.

 

[turf3]

Let's start a real flame war: hard bop is atonal cacophony.

I'd start a bunch of sarcastic comments, but I've been moderated before for this, so let's keep this the sarcasm-free zone it's meant to be.

 

[KenD]

I'd start a bunch of sarcastic comments, but I've been moderated before for this, so let's keep this the sarcasm-free zone it's meant to be.

That wasn't sarcasm; it was an honest personal opinion

 

[Jotha]

The thing with G has always been a problem... I had a conversation with a friend once about that, and we come to a point: you may not like his music/style, but the guy is responsible for bringing a lot of people to jazz; not everybody starts listening jazz with Miles, Wes, or any of the greats... His music is maybe the first step some people takes to enter to the jazz music, and I think sometimes jazz musicians does not realize it, or give him credit for that.
Besides, jazz is the biggest and most diverse music style... So considering smooth part of it isn't gonna hurt more that some egos

 

[brianrost]

Ken D, you might be confusing hard bop (from the 50s) with bebop (from the 40s). Hard bop was a movement to bring back more of the blues roots of jazz.

Bebop



Hard bop



Cacaphony



Bob James the "godfather of smooth jazz"



Dave Brubeck hits #2 on the Billboard charts, 1959

 

[turf3]

Well, that Brubeck stuff seems kind of lightweight and "easy-listening" now that you hear it over the speakers in the better grade of men's clothing shops, elevators, and mid-grade restaurants; but coming out when it did, at a time when hardly anyone was even playing in 3 - basically everything was Art Blakey hitting hard in 4 - it was a lot more unusual and exciting then.

 

[Passinwind]

That wasn't sarcasm; it was an honest personal opinion

So Hard Bop classics such as "Song For My Father" and "Mercy Mercy Mercy" are atonal and cacophonous in your opinion?

 

[Dr. Cheese]

We have to remember that smooth jazz grew out of the fusion period. No one would call the Tony Williams Lifetime, The Mahavishnu Orchestra or 70s Miles Davis smooth, but after Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" launched a funky strain of fusion everything changed. The path from CTI to GRP to Kenny G was almost inevitable.

+100

 

[Dr. Cheese]

So Hard Bop classics such as "Song For My Father" and "Mercy Mercy Mercy" are atonal and cacophonous in your opinion?

I never thought of those songs as Hard Bop. They are simply nice tunes that were also vehicles for improvisation.

 

[turf3]

I think some of you are using terminology in non-standard ways.

The generally accepted meaning of "hard bop" is that period from about 1955 through the mid sixties, exemplified by the bands of Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Horace Silver. Funky driving rhythms with more advanced harmonies especially in the soloing.

Now if you want to use the term "hard bop" to describe something else, we old farts are still using it as above, and would ask you to kindly wait till we're done with it. We'll let you know.

 

[Passinwind]

I never thought of those songs as Hard Bop. They are simply nice tunes that were also vehicles for improvisation.

They are played all the time on my local jazz station on the weekly Hard Bop show Doc. That particular station is pretty rigorous about historical accuracy, but I'm always perfectly happy to be corrected if I get things wrong.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

They are played all the time on my local jazz station on the weekly Hard Bop show Doc. That particular station is pretty rigorous about historical accuracy, but I'm always perfectly happy to be corrected if I get things wrong.

Given your musical background, I have no doubt your knowledge of Jazz history is better than mine.

 

[Thankful birds]

We have to remember that smooth jazz grew out of the fusion period. No one would call the Tony Williams Lifetime, The Mahavishnu Orchestra or 70s Miles Davis smooth, but after Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" launched a funky strain of fusion everything changed. The path from CTI to GRP to Kenny G was almost inevitable.

Came here to say this.

 

[Passinwind]

Given your musical background, I have no doubt your knowledge of Jazz history is better than mine.

I was a jazz DJ for a small community radio station many years ago and quickly found out that I'm not nearly as smart or well versed as I might like to think I am. But in any case, in my mind there's a pretty blurry line between Hard Bop and what so many of us would just call "straight ahead jazz", which is probably more in line with how I perceive those tunes in their original states.

If we really want to bore into gatekeeping genre labels Acid Jazz could be a fun one, or not...