[Dixielandjazz] Pat Metheny on Kenny G. and Louis Armstrong

[Steve Barbone]

Just in case we think Modern Jazz musicians don't dig the contribution 
that Louis Armstrong made to the music. Be warned, a couple of "X" rated 
words.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

"Hey Pat, what do you think of Kenny G?"

      "Kenny G is not a musician I really had not much of an opinion
      about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he
      played that interested me one way or the other either live or on
      records ... My impression was that he was someone who had spent a
      fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players
      of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not
      really an advanced player, even in that style."

      "....Not long ago [2000], Kenny G put out a recording where he
      overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong
      record, the track "what a wonderful world". With this single move,
      Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I
      really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance
      to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to
      share the stage with the single most important figure in our music."

      "This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing
      on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird
      when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few
      years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with
      Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the
      greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same
      level of artistic accomplishment."

      "....But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to
      defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz
      musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo
      bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all
      over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser
      ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible.
      He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and
      calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of
      musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past
      and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the
      road for years and years developing their own music inspired by
      the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every
      single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician."

      "By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who
      has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and
      what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern
      culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed
      about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own
      peril. His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this
      crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only
      reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong
      (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the
      money it would bring."