[Dixielandjazz] What is Smooth Jazz

Sun Aug 13 12:43:32 PDT 2006

Hi Hal:

I suppose we can attribute that to the baby boomers who mostly never 
had any exposure of any significance to OKOm or Dixieland Jazz except 
maybe some trite band in a pizza parlor once that did nothing for them. 
   And as you say wishing to be more sophisticated since they have 
pretty much outgrown rock and are trying to be adults and shelter their 
own kids from it's dubious less than positive impressions on their new 
lifestyle in the suburbs.   They have embraced this alleged More 
acceptable music and identify with it as their own for their generation.

I have also noticed being a former rocker myself that as we get older 
as musicians we too tend to slide backwards and embrace more cultural 
versions of Jazz  since we are mostly to embarrassed to go out and try 
to compete in the even more difficult Rock music world against the 
millions of twenty somethings having a worse time being heard than even 
Dixieland bands.  I know a LOT OF SIXTY SOMETHING FORMER ROCK STAR  
sidemen musicians with gold records on the wall that are now playing 
Smooth Jazz and getting hit records,  Why?  because the marketing army 
at major record labels have also abandoned their former styles of hit 
music and they too can't buy airtime or even a recording contract to 
play what they invented and do best.

If ANYONE had told me that I would embrace this kind of music and be 
playing it forty years ago I would have laughed my A off, now I are one 
and loving it and wondering why I did not go this direction forty years 
ago.  I have found the answer to that question right here on this list 
of many of the same folks who drove me as a young player away from 
wanting to be  anything like them musically and attitude wise.

Now my attitude towards those is very simple,  I like you less than I 
might like Smooth Jazz or Kenny G for simply personal  musical taste  
reasons and nothing else.  I admire him and all like him who have taken 
and made great strides to move Jazz and live music forward at all, if 
not for them I too  (might) be wearing a red garter belt and straw hat 
and be happy to only work one Tuesday night a week  in some small town 
playing to ten or thirty people who cared more about whether they got 
their anchovies on the pizza than they did about  the music.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins
Saint  Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band

-----Original Message-----
From: hvickery at svs.com
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Sent: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 10:33 AM
Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] What is Smooth Jazz

    >From what you're saying here, I'd say that fans of Kenny G and 
other "smooth
jazz" players want the air of sophistication that goes with liking jazz 
(at
least anything post bebop)without any of the challenge of actually 
listening
to the musical ideas that you have to do if you're going to listen to 
"real
jazz."

You have to admit, OKOM isn't considered very sophisticated anymore (if 
it
ever was).  That air of sophistication came when people stopped actually
dancing to the music.  You really did have to listen to the music then, 
and
a lot of people stopped buying jazz records.

Still, jazz aficionados (at least if it's post 1945 jazz) are 
considered to
be musical sophisticates.  They belong to this really cool secret club.
It's cool to be "hip," but it's also intellectually challenging.

So what better to do to make your audience feel hip and sophisticated 
but to
market the dreck you're selling as this really hip new kind of "smooth
jazz."  Then you can close your eyes and knowingly nod as musicians of
dubious improvisational talent play scales and noodle on their horns.  
And
if they hold a note for two minutes or play their scales really fast, 
you
can let out a whoop because you're so moved by it.

I've had people who listen to this stuff tell me, "I love jazz, too."

"Oh, who do you like."

"Kenny G."

And they really say it like I'm supposed to be impressed at their
sophistication.  That's what it's all about:  to feel hip without 
having to
actually think about the music.

Hal Vickery

-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of Steve 
Barbone
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 11:04 AM
To: DJML
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] What is Smooth Jazz

Phil O'Rourke philor at webone.com.au

>I may have said this before but I think it is ignorance on the part of 
the
>sellers/promoters/whatever.

Perhaps not ignorance, but simply a label. If one checks out the music
classification these days, one finds about 60 or so categories. Whether
accurate or not, who knows? I sure as hell can't tell the difference 
between
many of them

>It ain't rock, it ain't folk, it ain't classical, it ain't country. 
What's
>left? It must be jazz because we don't really understand it.

All sorts of stuff is left. Contemporary Classical, Adult Contemporary, 
New
Age, World Music, Rock, Christian Rock, Hard Rock, 70's Rock, Rap, Hip 
Hop,
New Age, Trad Jazz, Big Band Swing, Small Band Swing, Bop, Hard Bop, 
Avante
Garde, Free Jazz, Ragtime, Blues, INSTRUMENTAL POP, etc., etc., ad 
infinitum

>Elevator music is elevator music. They can call it smooze jazz or white
>noise or background music. It is there in the background not to be 
noticed.

Exactly. It is there to relax you. But, it also seems to piss off a 
small
group of old people for some reason. Like us on the DJML. :-) VBG.

>Jazz is a music you listen to, especially with your feet. The public 
don't
>give a rat's axx about chord progressions or key changes etc.

Well, maybe, maybe not. They love it when Kenny G circular breathes and
holds that note for 2 minutes, or when we play ultra high notes, or 
flutter
tongue. They listen with their eyes and ears as well as their feet. An 
old
trombone player told me 10 years ago; "They (the audience) love that
vaudeville shit." We would do lots, and smile all the way to the bank.
Really no different from what the ODJB, or Tom Brown, or NORK, or 
Louis, or
Dizzy, or Duke, or James Moody did/does.

I find that when I play for myself and execute difficult passages and 
off
beat chord changes, standing stock still like a classical player nobody 
but
other musicians "get" it. So, to make love to the audience, I make 
clarinet
player faces, squeeze out some body language, play high notes and do all
that other vaudeville stuff. And the audience relates, whether they are
"jazz sophisticated" or "jazz challenged".

>I think they are told something is jazz so they buy it on impulse, find
they
>don't like it and come to the conclusion they don't like jazz. What 
they
>mean is they don't like elevator music or whatever has been miss-named 
as
>jazz

I'm not so sure that is the case. Else Joe Lovano, Coltrane, and the 
rest of
the Jazz Musicians would be selling a lot more records. There are 
MILLIONS
of people buying Kenny G and/or Jeff Lorber, David Sanborn, Chris Botti
etc., who LOVE that music. If anything, by calling it jazz I should 
think it
might help those who play jazz as we define it. Perhaps we would sell 
more
Dixieland CDs if we simply called it "Jazz"?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

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