[Dixielandjazz] RE: Earlier post about Kenny G,

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

We have bantered that article by Pat Metheny around once or twice before, but 
I have been thinking about it all day since Steve posted it again this 
morning.

Perhaps if Pat and all of us on this list looked at it from a different 
perspective we might actually one day thank Kenny G.

 You say, What Wiggins, have you lost your ever lovin' mind??

Not at all folks, just adjusted the broadness of it again, :))

I would venture to say that since Kenny G committed his unpardonable sin of 
recording over a Louis Armstrong track, that it is quite possible it launched a 
who new series of Louis Armstrong recording sales and not to OKOM fans and 
musicians either.

For instance I have heard that song played repeatedly ever since it came out 
on SMOOTH JAZZ Stations that you could not pay to play a Louis Armstrong 
record or Lu Watters, or Turk Murphy, Wild Bill Davidson Buddy Bolden or anybody 
else so revered on this list.

I would also venture to say that today as a result of it's impact, there are 
several million more Louis Armstrong fans in the world who might otherwise 
have never discovered Louis and his music.

Kenny G  did in one fell swoop more for OKOM and Jazz than probably 80% of 
all the rest of the Jazz World.  But like Ken Burns and Wynton Marsallis, he is 
just too easy to HATE because he had the ingenuity to go out and do something 
about it instead of sitting at home bitching about there is no good Jazz or 
any place to play it.

Hell anybody out there got any Turk Murphy or Lu Watters, or Miles Davis, Bix 
or Wild Bill tracks, I 'll be happy to record over them and do it again, then 
maybe just maybe we can get Jazz up out of the "OTHER" Category just below 
spoken word and 3% of recorded music sales.   

I'll bet Kenny G and that song represented 2&1/2% of all the Jazz sold that 
year. :))

Heck, I played Jazz & Blues & Old Gospel before it was "Art" and when there 
was no such word used with it called desecration, which is no doubt what Louis' 
and Buddy's and the early pioneers of Jazz no doubt often had said about them 
by starving out of work wannabes all around them who were just not quite good 
enough to compete with them.

Or clever enough to find a way to market their better music to the generic 
unwashed public audiences who are just as starved for good music today as they 
were back then.

We is our own enemy folks, and I keep saying that the only folks that are 
going to save OKOM is us, and the longer we sit on our butts and don't go out and 
take it to a younger audience the longer your going to be unemployed.

In a few more years OKOM will certainly have a revival, but it will more than 
likely come about with a lot of out of tune squeaking players like Kenny G 
who have the guts to at least go out and try.  

Now if the public will embrace Kenny G, what makes any one of us on this list 
think they would not do the same for any of us if we but take it to them and 
take a chance.

The Strong survive and the weak shall inherit the earth, "about six feet of 
it" nothing wrong with that either I intend to play for the funerals of a lot 
of weak folks and get stronger on my skills every time I do so.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins
Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band

I accept Pre-Need contracts :))  And will send Anybody off in Style and 
Class.
I am already planning my own Nawlins Funeral and I think I will have one 
every year till I pass just so I can enjoy it myself and I f I charge admission I 
will have enough money to pay the band to play for me the day I do check out, 
and probably buy all the booze & food  needed to make sure the Second Liner's 
have a good time too.

Bet I could even Get Kenny G to sit in. :))