[Dixielandjazz] The Impact of Kenny G.

[Steve barbone]

Click!!! Tom, you just turned the light on for many of us.

Not only that, but did you notice that Metheny opines that what the G man
plays is indeed jazz? At least he had the sense to differentiate G's
abilities from Grover Washington Jr., who invented the smooth jazz genre in
the early 1970s.

Grover was a master of his horn, and a fellow Philadelphia reed man. G made
smooth jazz popular, but Grover was the innovator. Kind of the Buddy Bolden
- ODJB story all over again.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone



Tom Wiggins at TCASHWIGG at aol.com wrote (polite snip)
 
> We have bantered that article by Pat Metheny

> 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 whole 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.