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

[Patrick Cooke]

Hey guys...
        The word "record" follows Louis' name.  The computer broke up the
lines.
         It's the record that's 30+ years old.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert S. Ringwald" <robert at ringwald.com>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 10:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Pat Metheny on Kenny G. and Louis Armstrong


> Steve,
>
> Do I read this correctly?  "30 year old Louis Armstrong doing WWW?"  Does
> this mean he recorded it in 1931?  What am I missing here?
>
> --Bob
> Placerville, CA USA
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
> To: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 8:08 AM
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Pat Metheny on Kenny G. and Louis Armstrong
>
>
> > 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."
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
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