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.
Well you know Ken, unlike you I wasn't around then, but wouldn't that person have been Pat Metheny had not Smooth Jazz showed up?
After all here was a guy with incredible crossover potential/the Lyle Mays recordings/ and was just as comfortable and real with jazz puritans like Bill Stewart, Ornette Coleman and many others. Thing is, I don't think Metheny's recordings have ever done him justice. I once heard him live and I thought he was going to tear my head off.
When Metheny made those statements a while back, I completely agreed with him. AND I could also understand how in his eyes he had something deprived him that in his eyes should have belonged to him. IMO this made him the most likely of all the big names to go after G in such a big and public way, although everybody knows that most jazz musicians had been saying the same things about him privately and in small public venues for years.
And yeah Polly, I do think he probably has regrets, although I don't see him giving back any of the money. And to be fair, making at least good money has been an unfair rap on G the overall guy. After all, Miles Davis and others went after that money themselves at various times during their careers. But it was more like a comparison between say Sanborn and G, where Sanborn/who is cool with the jazz community/ makes a quarter of million dollars most years doing quality work, whereas G squeezed into a jumpsuit and made a fool of himself for the 20 million, when that same very comfortable Sanborn money was also available to him without all the spiritual consequences of taking that final step. I think jazz musicians are cool with making a good wage, but selling out is a different ballgame.
How could you not have regrets about your status with the jazz crowd when you were once one of the main guys on a very different path? Now those same people see him as Satan incarnate. He is never invited to jazz events and is entirely blocked out by what is left of that community. Entirely true or not, he's seen as the sell out who killed what was left of any real jazz market once and for all. There is even a famous
Far Side cartoon that portrays Charlie Parker's life in hell, locked in a recording studio, with Satan playing an endless stream of Kenny G records.
How could he like that?
I've been witness to the jazz life since the day I was born and it's something I'm proud of. Although I love other genres too, I feel the jazz and I'm proud of my heritage. I know there are a lot of people on forums who say I bring up my pedigree with all this too much, and I always answer that people who make this criticism are mostly people who don't have it. It's like this secret handshake or some club that you join for life. I think it just takes a whole lot to walk away from that, and when you do there are consequences.
After all, what's the use of all that other stuff if you don't have the respect of the people you used to care about the most?
I don't think that anyone if given the opportunity would know for sure what they would do if shown the same door G walked through.
It must have been tough for him. At least I hope it was. But he still did it, and I would like to think there's still enough regret left for
laughs all the way to the bank not to apply.