“Thanks, Kenny! You pump up the tires, and I’ll ride the bike.”
Not to hijack this thread even more, but you should listen to folks like Dilfer and Jaworski on ESPN when Tebowmania was in full swing - they may not have gotten “incensed” the way Metheny did, but you definitely hear the tone of an exasperated expert trying to 'splain quarterbacking to the masses. They say stuff like “look, let’s be honest and clear about this - the guy lacks fundamentals; foot work, throwing motion - it’s embarrassing…”
I think where Mister Rik was going (speaking as a fellow musician) was that he was a bit embarrassed by, rather than hating the compliments on his playing. I’ve been in the situation of being complimented on a gig where the band sounded fine but I thought my own playing was not up to snuff. Getting a nice compliment then just seems to trigger those internal self-doubt dialogues - when the lead vocalist says ‘Nice job, man’, did she really mean ‘You sounded like ass tonight, but I’m too polite to say so’?
I love playing, but some of us do lay a lot of head-trips on ourselves. Musicians are such sensitive flowers, after all.
Meh. I don’t like the result of what Vanilla Ice did, but I don’t think he should be prevented from sampling them because he’s not “worthy” or something silly like that.
To be fair, the analogy doesn’t really work.
The reason it doesn’t work is that Vanilla Ice was a rapper, whereas Q+DB were rockers. It was genre crossing, and within rap/hip hop, sampling is an accepted part of the oeuvre.
But imagine if all Vanilla Ice had done was take “Under Pressure” and just played the song straight thru while rapping/adding backing vocals & shout-outs.
Imagine if it had been like this:
Pressure (aw yeah!) pushing down on me (like a stone!)
Pressing down on you (feel that yo) no man ask for (not me nuh uh)
Under pressure (Under pressure fo shor) - that burns a building down (the roof the roof the roof is on fire!)
Splits a family in two (whoa no!)
Puts people on streets (on streets yo!)
It’s the terror of knowing (I’m showin’!)
What this world is about (get it goin’!)
Watching some good friends (my homies yo!)
Screaming let me out (somebody! everybody! make some noiiiiiise!)
Pray tomorrow (pray today!) - gets me higher ('cause I’m smoking that J)
If Vanilla Ice had cut that record, then I think anyone would be well within reason to be upset and offended. VI would not have created anything, all he would have done would have been to, in effect, make himself a part of Queen, after the fact. He would have not just ridden their coattails, he would have stolen the coat and tried to claim it was justified because, in his opinion, he looked good in it.
Imagine if I, a man who has difficulty drawing stick figures that are recognizable as even stick figures, took an original Picasso and marked over everything blue with a red Sharpie, and then presented myself as someone who had collaborated with Picasso.
Imagine yourself taking a book by Mark Twain, and writing “Yes, indeed-y.” at the end of every paragraph, and then selling the book as Tom Sawyer by Yookeroo & Mark Twain.
It seems to me that that is the heart of Metheny’s objection to what Kenny G did: he essentially stole someone else’s creative work, added something of dubious skill and worth over the top, and then sold it as his own work, perhaps winkingly referring to it as a “tribute” or some such. To many, many creative people, that’s going to stink from hell to heaven, and to Metheny, it not only stinks, it reeks of brimstone and treachery and every kind of foulness his senses have ever encountered, not least because from an artisan’s perspective, the original work was so far beyond Kenny G’s capabilities.
I don’t want to get in the middle of a smooth jazz war. But, one comment really has perplexed me. Normal people don’t like bebop? I’m about as non musical (and I like to think normal) as you can get, and I love bebop. I don’t claim to have any understanding of what is going on, I just love how it sounds. I thought bebop, at one time, was a pretty popular form of jazz for the masses.
I am kind of unlettered as a listener, I’ve never played music. But what I hear in Metheny seems ethereal, kind of otherworldly in its tone and style, whereas Kenny G seems mawkish and forced. If asked to say which is the better musician I would inevitably point to Metheny, even though I don’t have the technical knowledge of how he makes better music. His sound just seems more inventive, more the product of a creative mind finding new ways to express feelings and ideas and well, spirituality of a sort, through music.
That said, I don’t mind that Kenny G did a mashup of “Wonderful World.” I have not heard a lot of Louis Armstrong, but “Wonderful World” is a pretty damn mawkish song too. It strikes me as just the sort of song Kenny G would be attracted to, it’s kind of FITTING that he would work with that one. Its an experiment that failed, by a lesser talent, in my opinion. Well, succeeded financially, but it’s one big bucket of sappy to my ears. But hey, Kenny G is working with what he’s got.
I guess an analogy would make my feelings known. Snooki of Jersey Shore fame has written a novel. It has made the New York Times Top 10 bestseller list. Does that mean that Snooki has somehow become the literary equivalent of Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates or even Tom Clancy? Of course not: the people who like Snooki’s writing are literally tone deaf (pun intended). Their tastes turn to Snooki, not Oates, and well, I’m gonna let that be their problem, because I can’t be bothered to read Snooki’s work or even think about it much. (It’s been described to me, I’ve seen Snooki, and I can connect those dots, yes I can!) I’ll read the stuff I like, listen to the stuff I like, and ignore the stuff I don’t however more popular than the stuff I like.
Which is how I feel about Kenny G as well as Snooki. Though I am not comparing Kenny G directly to Snooki. He has a basic knowledge of how to play an instrument, and I doubt Snooki could make her way through a hundred words without making a dozen grammatical, spelling, and frankly, rational errors.
Offended? Because someone created a lame mashup? Again, meh. I’m a huge Queen & Bowie fan and I would find it funny. Not offensive in the least.
Are you actually trying to understand why Metheny wrote the things he wrote, or are you just here to tell us how you feel about the whole thing?
I understand. I just think he’s being a bit of a douche about it.
Ah.
I like Bebop, too, and - far from being unable to imagine any good reason that a musician would want to play it - I suspect that it’d be a whole lot of fun to get behind the wheel of that race car and see just how fast it’ll go. I don’t care to learn how to play it; I get a feeling of exhilaration just being in the passenger seat.
Isn’t that what music is supposed to be about - how it makes you feel? Are the feelings I get from listening to Bebop somehow less legitimate than the ones anyone else gets from their favorite music?
Of course they aren’t. It’s one thing to say “I’m an artist, and I don’t like cubism.” It’s another thing to say, “I don’t like cubism, so you shouldn’t, either.”
Well you SHOULDN’T like cubism! You know why? Too many cubes!!! And it’s the same with bebop … too many notes!
It sounds like sour grapes to me, too. The guy, like many other musicians, chooses to focus on being good rather than being popular. That’s great and wonderful, but when you aren’t popular from learning to play well, you shouldn’t go out being an asshole to the guy who chose to be popular instead of good. You had your chance. Getting that mad over it is clearly not just motivated by dislike.
Yeah, Kenny G is crap. Everyone knows this. Some people like him anyways. So what? It’s like an opera singer delivering a takedown of Ke$ha’s singing abilities.
If Ke$ha overdubbed her vocals over a Maria Callas aria, someone like Placido Domingo would probably feel justified in reacting like Metheny did. Just a guess.
I remember at least a few Metheny albums that were light jazz shlock, so I don’t really see why he’s instigating a battle of the shaggy-haired light jazz artists. As far as talent, isn’t Kenny G’s circular breathing technique not easy to do? I never thought he was untalented, rather he’s misusing the talent that he has. Richard Thompson? He’s more of a folk musician, so I’m not sure why he’d bother commenting on this. And yes, the original “Wonderful World” was a treacly song, so that is a strange song on which to take this stance.
To the extent your comments are more to support your “this is silly” bottom line, cool. But there are answers to your questions:
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Pat Metheny has done more accessible stuff, but is a very sophisticated jazz musician. If you like jazz, a bit of research would show he has covered a lot of territory, some accessible, some more out there, some more Latin flavored, etc.
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Kenny G does circular breathing - it is a physical feat that can be hard to master, but is a trick in the way he uses it. Mariah Carey can hit helium-high falsetto and melisma like a wobbly jello mold - and it’s basically a trick the way she uses it. Same with Yngwie Malmsteen and his shredding. Musician’s tend to refer to this technique-for-the-sake of flash as wanking.
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Richard Thompson may play mostly in the folk world, but he is one of the most respected musicians and pure guitarists in the world today. Seriously, read his Wiki entry for a sketch. He flies under the radar - I assume because he has a prickly personality - but from an insider’s insider perspective, he’s like Peter Gabriel, Prince, Jeff Beck and a few others in terms of deep respect for his craft. His taking a shot at Kenny G, even a prickly-funny shot, is…not good.
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Wonderful World - I think the feeling was that Kenny G was kinda hoping he could skirt this one past - I mean, hey, it’s a sentimental bullshit-little song that Louis sang to cash in when he was in that Philadelphia-story-based musical with Bing, Frank and Grace Kelly (the Country Girl?). Natalie Cole just did it with her dad’s tune - what’s the harm? As you can see from this thread, a lot of folks still feel this way. I see him as Ke$ha overdubbing onto Maria Callas. YMMV.
Song X sounds a lot more like an Ornette Coleman album than a Pat Metheny album. I got started on Ornette Coleman after watching Naked Lunch and becoming intrigued by the soundtrack.
I have a few albums of Metheny (aside from Song X), a lot of his stuff sounds just like a lot of his other stuff.
I admit I haven’t read every single post in this thread, but I’m curious: Metheney states in his text that G is consistently out of tune, and specifically sharp. Is this true? It’s hard to believe, frankly.
Add me to the ones who think Metheney and Thompson come off as jealous of Kenny G’s commercial success even if they are correct in their assessment of his musical talents.