[Dixielandjazz] Kenny G.

[Stephen G Barbone]

Not OKOM and according to Ratliff, (as well as G himself) not jazz.  
Note that this was not promoted by Lincoln Center, but a rental of the  
venue by Kenny G.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Upholding the Standards of Smooth Jazz Purists

February 14, 2008 - By BEN RATLIFF
Have you seen the Wikipedia entry on smooth jazz lately? Probably not,  
but it’s a mess. The administrators have tagged almost every section  
with provisos: “Its neutrality is disputed”; “needs additional  
citations for verification”; “reads like an advertisement”; may  
contain “unverified claims.”

Poor smooth jazz, besieged by haters. Being righteous about what’s  
called traditional jazz is easy. Being righteous about smooth jazz is  
much more difficult. It is a commercial construct, a radio format more  
than a style of music. For 20 years it has appealed across race and  
class and gender, partly because it asks so little. It is a physical  
presence but an intellectual absence. It is an unverified claim.

It lost ground last week when WQCD-FM, the New York radio station  
known as CD101.9 and the station with smooth jazz’s biggest market  
share in the country, went off the air, replaced at 101.9 by the rock  
format WRXP. In related news, the saxophonist Kenny G — the regent of  
the smoothiverse, a man who at his height moved 15 million copies of  
just one album (“Breathless,” from 1992) — has been selling fewer  
records lately. Well, so has everyone. But as a consequence he now  
plays where actual jazz performers play, like the Rose Theater at Jazz  
at Lincoln Center, where he appeared on Tuesday.

The concert was an outside rental and not a production of Jazz at  
Lincoln Center itself, but there was still a paradox in there  
somewhere. The organization has effortfully formed definitions of what  
jazz is and is not, and Kenny Gorelick, one assumes, is a boldface Not.

Curly-locked and slim-hipped, he made his customary entrance, playing  
and walking through the audience. As he approached a small stage in  
the front rows, he halted a slow ballad to hold a single note, by  
circular breathing, for several minutes, shaking hands with the  
audience along the way. In 1997 he set a Guinness world record for  
longest saxophone note — 45 minutes 47 seconds — so this bit is now a  
running joke. “Still going ...” flashed the screen above the stage.  
“Still going ...” He held the note with the same feathery authority  
that he plays everything, and the tremendously long note had no  
emotional or narrative connection to the song itself.

Kenny G is a dull but wickedly consistent musician: automatic with his  
tremulous phrasing and canned licks, which formed fast, organized  
roils during his unaccompanied solos; melismatic purrings of the  
melody on ballads; and gospel phrases in R&B songs. He was strangely  
unobtrusive, letting his band provide most of the excitement. His  
stage persona is the gifted California optimist, a good-time bro  
unencumbered by history.

His new album, “Rhythm & Romance” — released by Concord Records and  
Starbucks — is his first Latin record, with traces of bossa nova,  
samba, salsa and Peruvian lando. You can’t really fault him for  
exoticism. That’s for adults. His show seemed more aimed at children.

When he began the first notes of “Havana,” from an older record, the  
screen read: “Havana: ha-VAN-a, n.: A city of rhythm and romance,”  
then showed pictures of palm trees and tropical fish. He made much of  
his new album, which in contrast to his past records features much of  
his own writing. But he didn’t evince his own connection to Latin  
music. Introducing his new single, the mild boogaloo “Sax-O-Loco,” he  
gave seven words of exegesis: “This is a very fun, happy song.”

His band played the new music with assurance; the percussionist Ron  
Powell and the bassist Vail Johnson gave it teeth by playing  
athletically on feature solos. The band did the right thing by hiring  
two excellent local percussionists, Pedro Martinez and Johnny Rivero,  
to give the rhythm more depth, form and, I guess, authenticity, but it  
didn’t make it mean much.