Pat Metheny on Kenny G and other Jazz greats

to me i would define 'jazz' by the chords/progressions and scales used. and the arrangement/accents/etc. ofcourse the drumming comes into too, but.
i mean ska-punk music uses brass/woodwind all the time, but that isn't jazz. i could be completely wrong, because i don't really listen to a lot of it, but that is what i would say.
if i'm wrong then feel free to shoot me. :)
 
Don't worry, Johnny. None of us who actually listen to and play jazz regularly "have to ask " or define it.
 
DrumEatDrum said:
All true. But such limitations are not limited to jazz.

Look how many posts blow off metal as nothing but "Loud guitars with some guy screaming "hail satan"" without realizing there are 101 variations of metal, some of which have the complexity and sensitivity of other forms of music.

Or how many people blow off all country as the bland twangy pop music on the radio, without looking at someone like Johnny Cash is also considered country.

Most of my generation was brought up that classical is boring back ground music to put on at nap time when in pre-school, yet the 1812 Overture would never qualify as nap time music.

Or the kids who think The Who are just that band that does the CSI theme songs.
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I agree, but at the same time metal and country get a lot more exposure than jazz which allows for a much greater chance that people are going to be exposed to something in that style which will change their opinions.

The difference here is that you have something that is not jazz being labeled as jazz, which in turn has turned many people off to ever exploring jazz due to the fact that they think that all jazz music sounds like Kenny G. It would be different if they formed that opinion after hearing a little bit of Miles Davis from 'Kind of Blue' (one of my all-time favorite albums). It would be unfortunate that they would base their entire opinion of jazz on one or two songs they heard by Miles that they didn't care for, but at least it would be real jazz. So the conflict really comes from the fact that jazz is receiving a negative stereotype as being dull and boring in a lot of people's minds because of another type of music that isn't even jazz being labeled as jazz.

As I said before, just because something is played on a saxophone doesn't make it jazz, and that's really all that smooth jazz has in common with real jazz. It's like categorizing anything sung by somebody with a Jamaican accent as being reggae.


Deltadrummer said:
Don't worry, Johnny. None of us who actually listen to and play jazz regularly "have to ask " or define it.
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Couldn't agree more. You could spend the next hundred years trying to define jazz, and you still won't have an all encompassing definition. Maybe the problem is that our society is so obsessed with defining things and putting them in their own little box that people are missing the point entirely. I think one of the great things about jazz is that it CAN'T be defined. However, just because you can't write down a clear cut, one-size-fits-all definition doesn't mean that you can label anything that you want as being jazz. If you really know jazz, you won't have to question whether something is jazz.
 
Michael McDanial said:
The difference here is that you have something that is not jazz being labeled as jazz, which in turn has turned many people off to ever exploring jazz due to the fact that they think that all jazz music sounds like Kenny G.

Couldn't agree more. You could spend the next hundred years trying to define jazz, and you still won't have an all encompassing definition. .
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I think this is a contradiction,.We do live upon a big paradox, and a paradox or contradiction that I am okay with.

In order to say Kenny G is not jazz, you need to have a working conceptual framework or definition of what jazz is. Academic definitions are often not fortified enough to hold the tide when you really get a look into the music. But they do give a conceptual framework in which to work and in that sense they do deepens ones appreciation of the music. They are a starting point.


Wynton defined the jazz tradition the way he did largely because he was a black nationalist back in the day. Farrakhan actually likes Kenny G. It's interesting that when I was an undergraduate Ragtime was not considered part of the jazz tradition, where as now it often is. (I always thought it was.) Will r and b be seen as a part of the jazz tradition? Things change when you have enough hindsight. If you keep on spreading out what jazz is, it becomes harder to generalize a definition. If you don't define the core elements and make-up of the art form, you are left with anybody being able to say that anything is jazz.

Another issue is that the best of Jazz music will be remembered in one hundred years. In that sense you need to develop an understanding of why. I think Polly was right that their are different levels of jazz, a more popular level and a more serious level. The question to ask is when the popular level stops becoming jazz.

btw You can say the same for country as well. You have the tradition of the outlaws and highway men, as well as alternative country, that has reacted against the rhinestone mainstream. The former is the music that people remember in the long run.
 
Deltadrummer said:
I think this is a contradiction,.We do live upon a big paradox, and a paradox or contradiction that I am okay with.

In order to say Kenny G is not jazz, you need to have a working conceptual framework or definition of what jazz is. Academic definitions are often not fortified enough to hold the tide when you really get a look into the music. But they do give a conceptual framework in which to work and in that sense they do deepens ones appreciation of the music. They are a starting point.


Wynton defined the jazz tradition the way he did largely because he was a black nationalist back in the day. Farrakhan actually likes Kenny G. It's interesting that when I was an undergraduate Ragtime was not considered part of the jazz tradition, where as now it often is. (I always thought it was.) Will r and b be seen as a part of the jazz tradition? Things change when you have enough hindsight. If you keep on spreading out what jazz is, it becomes harder to generalize a definition. If you don't define the core elements and make-up of the art form, you are left with anybody being able to say that anything is jazz.

Another issue is that the best of Jazz music will be remembered in one hundred years. In that sense you need to develop an understanding of why. I think Polly was right that their are different levels of jazz, a more popular level and a more serious level. The question to ask is when the popular level stops becoming jazz.
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Great post, and Ken raises a good point. The transient nature of what is good will always keep us guessing where status quo stands. It might always be a moving target, though we will know in our hearts, what we believe to be good.

I hear the The Beatles in hotel elevators all the time. The same four guys who re-defined the word music, let alone pop music just a couple of generations ago.

Keeping personal tastes aside, I found it intriguing that Metheny would slap KG so hard and publicly chastise him. That has to be coming from an invisible line that KG crossed. I think that line has more to do with honesty of purpose or the lack of ) rather than any of the other motives discussed here. Just my take on it..

This also reminds me of what Miles hoarsely whispered to Wayne Shorter when Wayne announced to him that he was going to form a band with Zawinul ( Weather Report ). He leaned over and said " Wayne, dont give anything away".



Ok, so how about a thread about why is Jazz so fiercely defended?

...
 
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aydee said:
Keeping personal tastes aside, I found it intriguing that Metheny would slap KG so hard and publicly chastise him. That has to be coming from an invisible line that KG crossed. I think that line has more to do with honesty of purpose or the lack of ) rather than any of the other motives discussed here. Just my take on it..
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I'm sure he does feel that way but IMO the main reason is that Pat resents Kenny's lowering of the bar and he doesn't want serious jazz people pressured into playing Kenny's wallpaper.


aydee said:
Ok, so how about a thread about why is Jazz so fiercely defended?
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Easy answer again. Jazz is a difficult genre to play well and it takes dedication to get good at it. Dedicated people are passionate people, and passionate people are annoying pains in the backside who get in people's faces. But we still love 'em because what they give via their art touches us.
 
aydee said:
Keeping personal tastes aside, I found it intriguing that Metheny would slap KG so hard and publicly chastise him. That has to be coming from an invisible line that KG crossed.
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Don't forget the specific reason Pat mentioned in the full written interview though! He said he talked specifically to some kids in a Polish tv appearance, or something like that. He wasn't aware the very excerpt would spread all over the internet.
 
Deltadrummer said:
I think this is a contradiction,.We do live upon a big paradox, and a paradox or contradiction that I am okay with.

In order to say Kenny G is not jazz, you need to have a working conceptual framework or definition of what jazz is. Academic definitions are often not fortified enough to hold the tide when you really get a look into the music. But they do give a conceptual framework in which to work and in that sense they do deepens ones appreciation of the music. They are a starting point.


Wynton defined the jazz tradition the way he did largely because he was a black nationalist back in the day. Farrakhan actually likes Kenny G. It's interesting that when I was an undergraduate Ragtime was not considered part of the jazz tradition, where as now it often is. (I always thought it was.) Will r and b be seen as a part of the jazz tradition? Things change when you have enough hindsight. If you keep on spreading out what jazz is, it becomes harder to generalize a definition. If you don't define the core elements and make-up of the art form, you are left with anybody being able to say that anything is jazz.

Another issue is that the best of Jazz music will be remembered in one hundred years. In that sense you need to develop an understanding of why. I think Polly was right that their are different levels of jazz, a more popular level and a more serious level. The question to ask is when the popular level stops becoming jazz.

btw You can say the same for country as well. You have the tradition of the outlaws and highway men, as well as alternative country, that has reacted against the rhinestone mainstream. The former is the music that people remember in the long run.
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So does that mean until we have a clear, strict definition of jazz, then anything can be considered jazz or anyone can be considered a jazz musician? Here is a post from one of the members on the jazz forum of which I am a member in a thread about smooth jazz:


"I think that if smooth jazz called itself smooth pop that no jazz fans would care one way or the other.

What if smooth jazz did not change at all as a music, but was marketed by the music industry with the name Smooth Metal, or Smooth Hip Hop--the fans of real metal and real hip hop would not like that. I think that jazz fans feel that smooth jazz has nothing to do with jazz, and don't like the use of the word jazz to sell it.

This defining issue is not the point. One could say, "hey, this smooth music has song forms, clearly defined beats, uses guitars, just like metal--so it's smooth metal. Now how do you exactly define metal to be able to exclude this music? You can't! So metal has no definition. So Smooth Metal is really part of metal."

At some point, a musical genre just isn't another musical genre. So it is with jazz and the stuff they have chosen to call "smooth jazz"."

So how come Kenny G's music isn't labeled as smooth metal? How come Metallica isn't labeled as a jazz group? Just because you can't put it in it's own confined little box doesn't mean that jazz music doesn't have certain characteristics that make it jazz. My ear let's me know if something is jazz, not a dictionary.
 
Michael McDanial said:
So does that mean until we have a clear, strict definition of jazz, then anything can be considered jazz or anyone can be considered a jazz musician?
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No, just the opposite. :) But I think that clearly states why you need a definition.


Michael McDanial said:
"I think that if smooth jazz called itself smooth pop that no jazz fans would care one way or the other.
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I actually said the same thing some three pages ago; that in essence if smooth jazz were called smooth r and b no one would have a fuss. The reasoning to call it jazz is to give it artistic merit. But Pat thinks such meit needs to be earned like all the greats did.


aydee said:
Keeping personal tastes aside, I found it intriguing that Metheny would slap KG so hard and publicly chastise him. That has to be coming from an invisible line that KG crossed. I think that line has more to do with honesty of purpose or the lack of ) rather than any of the other motives discussed here. Just my take on it..


Ok, so how about a thread about why is Jazz so fiercely defended?

...
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It's also a funny aspect that jazz aficionados, those snobs, see this invisible line so clearly; whereas the average public doesn't see it at all.

I'm game for that thread. :)
 
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Deltadrummer said:
No, just the opposite. :) But I think that clearly states why you need a definition.
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Well, start a thread about defining jazz and I guarantee that you can get a thread a hundred pages long and still not come up with a clear, definitive definition of jazz. Trust me, this topic has been brought up several times on the All About Jazz forum where I am a member, and it's always had the same result. By now the regular members there have gotten so tired of it that when somebody new starts a thread on it they just post a link of the old threads and tell them to go there. Go on the forum and search for the threads. There are several of them on there.

Deltadrummer said:
I actually said the same thing some three pages ago; that in essence if smooth jazz were called smooth r and b no one would have a fuss. The reasoning to call it jazz is to give it artistic merit. But Pat thinks such meit needs to be earned like all the greats did.
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The main reason why smooth jazz got it's label was because many of the leading musicians were saxophonists. Saxophone was an instrument that was rarely used and not very respected before it started being used in jazz. Pretty soon the instrument pretty much became synonymous with jazz to a lot of people. This is why it was easy for the companies marketing this form of instrumental pop to associate it with jazz and call it smooth jazz with no problem among the general public.

Look at how many metal drummers out there use a double bass setup. Does this mean that Louie Bellson and Ray McKinley were the first metal musicians? Does anybody who writes/performs a song with rhyming lyrics automatically make them a rapper? This is certainly a characteristic of rap, just as improvisation is a huge part of jazz, but does that mean that a song without rhyming lyrics can not be a rap song? Can a song not be a jazz song if it doesn't involve improvisation? You see, here we're running into the same problem we run into when trying to define jazz. It's the same problem you'll see when you look at those defining jazz threads on the All About Jazz forum.


Deltadrummer said:
It's also a funny aspect that jazz aficionados, those snobs, see this invisible line so clearly; whereas the average public doesn't see it at all.

I'm game for that thread. :)
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Here we go with the whole snobbery thing again. I love how people always say it's wrong to stereotype, but they seem to have no problem doing that here with jazz musicians and aficionados. Jazz aficionados can see the line so clearly because they are very knowledgeable about jazz. They've listened to it/studied it so much that something which the average man on the street may have trouble recognizing, such as the difference between jazz and instrumental pop labeled as smooth jazz, is quite clear to them.

Isn't this the case with everything? Wouldn't anybody who has taken the time and effort to really learn about something be able to see any differences right away? A lot of people that are very well versed in art could easily point out or recognize a phony reproduction of a famous painting that I, or any other average joe out there would never be able to tell the difference between the fake one and the real thing. What you could easily convince me, or an average joe with little or no knowledge of art, as an authentic painting by a famous artist would have an expert in art laughing at you for even trying to pass off such a thing as being authentic.

So does that mean that anybody who has even the smallest amount of knowledge about something can claim to be an expert in that field? Does this mean that somebody who read one biography of Martin Luther King Jr. can now call themselves an expert on African American history? How about somebody with a basic knowledge on how to use a first aid kit to treat cuts/scrapes calling themselves a doctor? Would an African American history professor or a doctor be pissed off at people claiming these titles? You're darn right they would, and rightfully so. I'm a teacher and I get pissed off when some politician who has no experience working in my field acts like he's an expert in education because they have the power to make laws affecting the educational system. Do I have a good reason to be pissed off about this? I sure as heck think I do. Does it make the history professor, the doctor, or myself to be snobs for feeling this way?

A lot of country aficionados consider the popular country of today to not be real country, but just a form of pop music with some country influence, and they can get pretty heated about it. Are they right? I don't know. I'm not very knowledgeable about country music, so who am I to go and say they're wrong and just accuse them of being snobs? What might seem like a blurred line to me may appear to be clear as day to them.

Also, if you want to see some snobbery, you should see how some of the metal and rock musicians I have met have talked about country music. The way they talked about it you would think that country music had no right even being called music.

I'm not a country fan (other than listening to Johnny Cash), but I do respect it and the musicians who play it. I'm sure they're just as serious about their music as myself and other jazz musicians are about our music.

So why don't we just stop stereotyping jazz musicians and aficionados as snobs? Musicians and aficionados of other forms of music are certainly no better.

Postscript: An even better example is the number of people today who complain that modern day punk music is not real punk and that real punk is dead. I do like some punk music, but like country, I'm far from being any kind of expert on it. They obviously see a clear line being drawn from early punk and the music labeled as punk nowadays. I couldn't tell you the characteristics that make the two so different that they can recognize right away. Funny, but I never hear these people that claim that something is not real country or not real punk being labeled as snobs. That negative label and stereotype seems to be exclusively for the jazz musicians.
 
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Michael McDanial said:
The main reason why smooth jazz got it's label was because many of the leading musicians were saxophonists. Saxophone was an instrument that was rarely used and not very respected before it started being used in jazz. Pretty soon the instrument pretty much became synonymous with jazz to a lot of people. This is why it was easy for the companies marketing this form of instrumental pop to associate it with jazz and call it smooth jazz with no problem among the general public.
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Smooth Jazz was a term coined by the Muzak Corporation in the early 80s, used to describe a genre of instrumental music/ of a jazz like configuaration/ they were attempting to sell in block proportions to the up and coming public radio stations, who at the time were upset that jazz listeners were not contributing enough money to their bi annual fund drives.

For those not aware, Muzak is much more than a genre of background music. It is in reality an insanely influential company based outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. And yes they are the same people responsible for the music in supermarkets, dentist's offices, elevators etc. In the beginning they used a large number of players from the non union PTL ministries, which at the time was the pinnacle of Christian broadcasting. PTL even once boasted the third largest amusement park in the world/ after Disneyworld and Disneyland/. And yes because of their tie in with contemporary Christian music, there were those kinds of saxophone and guitar players all over that region.

I was born 45 minutes from there and knew a bunch of that old crowd growing up. Their PTL leadership used to be two nutcases named Jim and Tammy Bakker who I hear were very famous in the 80s before they were caught up in a sex scandal.

Muzak Inc. supposedly engaged in a lot of research to discover what public radio people would and would not like. So they took a little of this and a little of that until they had this lab experiment that appealed to old 30 something 80s yuppies/mostly women/ while still holding on to peripheral jazz listeners who would check out David Sanborn/a great player btw/ but would never get into Coltrane etc.

It was no shock that the Southeast was one of the first places to accept this stuff. It's a complicated issue. But to say that product has/had anything to do with the evolution of jazz would be a mistake. It's simply an artificial music like product that has the word jazz included in its name as a way of hooking and cornering a tiny market/jazz/ that not that many people were paying attention to. Although the jazz market was small, they already had an infrastructure with decades of use set in place, making them an attractive target for a takeover of sorts. However, things got confusing when popular jazz-pop crossover guys gave up on calling their music something else and just accepted the smooth jazz term to get along. So in the end Muzak got everything it wanted including a ready made section in the CD store.

Strange business.
 
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Michael McDanial;685806} So why don't we just stop stereotyping jazz music.[/QUOTE said:
Well, the snob thing was meant in jest. I was actually the one called a snob.

I teach Music Appreciation, and I get a classroom full of students who come in, many of whom would not know the difference between a soprano sax, an alto or an oboe, much less even an harmonica. By the end of the semester, hopefully they do and can start to distinguish these things. So to read the definition of a 'snob' as someone who believes that their listening is somewhat 'superior' to others, and to say that that is a bad thing is a joke in my book It is 'superior' to be able to distinguish instruments, never mind form, harmony or genre.

To me, it would seem snobbish to actually believe that all music or all listening is value neutral, as I have elucidated many times in my posts, or to believe that everyone gets an equal vote when it comes to musical aesthetics. That's what you get in forums and in the marketplace. But in the final draw, it is only the most knowledgeable of listeners who are going to go back and listen to music from yesteryear, never mind popular music from yesteryear. How many Stephen Foster tunes can most people identify, even musicians?

When a listener is listening to jazz, is that listener hearing the chromatic harmony, micro-tonality or the syncopation? Can the listener distinguish the melody? Does the listener know the difference between a drum set and a drum machine? Can the listener hear aspects of the form and understand what improvisation and which instrument is soloing and how, then maybe which artist? These are real issues you deal with when teaching music.

You need to define things because that is how you discuss them. There are core elements of jazz: improvisation, chromatic harmonic language, syncopated rhythms or use of certain instrumentation that you can identify. It is not going to say that every jazz piece is going to have these elements and in the same way any more then you can codify the use of sonata form and say every classical piece does this. It's uniqueness is what makes it art.

Jazz needs to be defined because that is how you teach it. You need to have a conceptual framework even to explain how certain artists have reacted against status quo. it needs to be defended because there are elements of jazz that make it a great art form, not only because of its history but because of its methodology, its way of making music. You want people to understand its greatness and how artists go about making great music. That's snobbery, that's life and that's something worth defending.

Nice post Matt.
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mattsmith said:
But to say that product has/had anything to do with the evolution of jazz would be a mistake. It's simply an artificial music like product that has the word jazz included in its name as a way of hooking and cornering a tiny market/jazz/ that not that many people were paying attention to.
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An "artificial music-like product". Matt, you have no idea what you have given birth to here. I love it! It describes so much of the cookie cutter crap that they throw at us today. Just like that cheese-like product that nobody can determine if it is liquid, if it is solid, or even more important, is it even digestible? Music is starting to emulate the fast food industry, sure enough!
 
Strangelove said:
An "artificial music-like product". Matt, you have no idea what you have given birth to here. I love it! It describes so much of the cookie cutter crap that they throw at us today. Just like that cheese-like product that nobody can determine if it is liquid, if it is solid, or even more important, is it even digestible? Music is starting to emulate the fast food industry, sure enough!
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And this is where the G thing comes in.

The legend is that Kenny Gorlik was quite the serious musician in his up and coming late 1970s days. My grandfather says he once heard him at a place in Minneapolis called the Riverview Supper Club, where his playing was so hot that people were standing on their chairs cheering. And most of that was for his bebop playing, where according to that generation he was playing a mostly hard edged tenor, a soprano in the style of Coltrane and most especially a flute that everyone raved about. When I first got serious about jazz, I heard the story again and again of Gorlik's amazing 20 minute versions of Cherokee. Supposedly he was one of the true bright stars of the future and was entirely accepted by the jazz community.

Then around 1980 he joined Jeff Lorber's pop oriented fusion band, but because of his original homage to bebop, jazz guys sort of gave him a pass with Lorber, and truth be known a lot of puritan jazz guys enjoy Lorber but don't always share it. In that band he was still a very exciting player, full of originality while rarely repeating his improvisations.
OK the jazz puritans said. All's still cool. After all even Sonny Rollins once played a Dolly Parton song.

Then about a year later, Columbia or Warner Bros. gave him a record deal and that was the beginning of the change. Apparently he was willing to accept handlers to get to the next step while improvisations were now often the same solo every night, which is a big no no in jazz.

Then it was somebody at the record company's bright idea to feature him as one of the stars of tommorrow on of all places The Oprah Show. He was apparently the hit of the program and Oprah christened him one of the new stars of the world. I've seen video of this show. It was even once on youtube. He played some pop tune and circular breathed some phrase for like a minute and everybody went nuts. Supposedly, he had also used circular breathing in his early jazz days as a way of effectively extending his original phrases. But this was the first time he did it just to show off. As you can see all the signs were already out there, and in the eyes of the jazz puritans the devil was in fact beginning to show his horns.

My dad says he used to love the guy, and actually tried to impress my David Sanborn loving mom with tickets to one of the early G shows, when they were still dating. Story was that Dad was shocked when G walked out on stage minus his trademark coat and collared shirt and was instead wearing a red jumpsuit. He played soprano almost exclusively and had obviously gone to great lengths to drastically change his tone. See, after the Oprah show he got new management, and supposedly one of the guys was from Fort Mill, South Carolina which is the Charlotte suburb where Muzak Inc is located.

It was all too coincidental and soon the stories were out/true or not/ that G had direct ties to Muzak, which of course tied him right into their Smooth Jazz market, and ready made network of public radio stations that soon spilled into the adult contemporary market. Soon Smooth Jazz had two formally small but well organized markets, and the G cult following was able to grow very quickly, especially when he was also the As seen on Oprah guy.

When that one G solo CD sold all those millions of copies, CD stores saw the word jazz and thought they could at last get rid of those stupid jazz recordings that they felt weren't selling enough. Soon those Dexter Gordon reissues were in the cutouts and G's Smooth Jazz was there in its place. Soon, people tried to copy the G success and actually intentionally tried to copy him to make money. Then of course some other clever guys saw all that Sanborn, Brecker Bros, George Benson CTI crossover stuff from the 70s and just threw that into the same rack to cop on a kind of fake lineage that never actually existed.

In my opinion this is where the G hate comes from. Not only was the term jazz redefined by Muzak chemists and sold as the real deal. It was forwarded willingly and deliberately by a guy who had true jazz apostle potential, which is in some people's way of thinking the true definition of a sell out.

And in the mind of a jazz puritan selling out guarantees you a one way ticket to hell.
 
Nice post again, Matt. That puts everything in perspective. I think that a true great would have been able to bridge both worlds, and that would have abeen a god send for jazz in the '80s.

It would really be nice to hear some of your thoughts on some of the other issues this question brings.
 
First off, I didn't realize you were being sarcastic Deltadrummer. It's much harder to tell when reading it in writing as opposed to speaking to somebody face to face, where your tone of voice can make it obvious that you're being sarcastic.

Deltadrummer said:
You need to define things because that is how you discuss them. There are core elements of jazz: improvisation, chromatic harmonic language, syncopated rhythms or use of certain instrumentation that you can identify. It is not going to say that every jazz piece is going to have these elements and in the same way any more then you can codify the use of sonata form and say every classical piece does this. It's uniqueness is what makes it art.

Jazz needs to be defined because that is how you teach it. You need to have a conceptual framework even to explain how certain artists have reacted against status quo. it needs to be defended because there are elements of jazz that make it a great art form, not only because of its history but because of its methodology, its way of making music. You want people to understand its greatness and how artists go about making great music. That's snobbery, that's life and that's something worth defending.
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Well, we're in agreement in that we both feel that there are certain characteristics of the music (like improvisation, the influence of the blues, and the swing feel) that help to identify it. My point was that we're not going to get a clear definition of jazz with strict lines being drawn where we can just say "this is what jazz is", because there are always going to be cases where there are exceptions. What will really help people to identify jazz would be to listen to a lot of jazz from all eras. This will help people to hear those things that make jazz what it is. As I said in my previous post, somebody with a lot of knowledge of jazz who has listened to many, many hours of jazz and put in much effort in studying it, will see the line drawn between real jazz and smooth jazz clear as day. Yet, at the same time, people with very little to no knowledge of jazz have a difficult time distinguishing the two.
 
I don't think that we are in disagreement about anything, Michael.
 
Matt, that was an outstanding and valuable post. Loved it.

I found it hard to imagine how someone could play at his level without being passionate at least at one time. That's filled in what was, for me, the missing pieces. It looked like a lineage to me before but now I can roughly see where the dividing line lies.

Thing is, The G is still apparently wedded to his Selmer so there must still be some passion left. It would be interesting to know how he feels about it, whether there is still a side to him that wistfully looks back on the days when he only played for love or whether the multi-millions he's made compensates. Very few of us ever have even the remotest chance of winning the musical lottery and when you have a family the temptation when such an opportunity arises must be huge.

Strangelove said:
An "artificial music-like product". Matt, you have no idea what you have given birth to here. I love it! It describes so much of the cookie cutter crap that they throw at us today. Just like that cheese-like product that nobody can determine if it is liquid, if it is solid, or even more important, is it even digestible? Music is starting to emulate the fast food industry, sure enough!
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Doctor, the term "music-like product" cracked me up too. We could open up a whole new can of worms. Never mind the "is it jazz?" question ... is it real music? Maybe good for another dozen or so pages? :)
 
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Deltadrummer said:
I don't think that we are in disagreement about anything, Michael.
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Sorry, didn't mean to imply we were on different sides. We were just elaborating on our points in our own way. I think it was just how we were explaining our points that caused some confusion as to what we were saying in our posts.

Cheers
 
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