I listened to ‘Watercolors’ on Sirius radio from Thanksgiving on, and it went a long, LONG way in helping me though the f’ing holidays. It was very soothing, though I couldn’t tell you the names of musicians. Seriously. It was extremely helpful in getting me through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the week after New Years.
Stanley Turrentine cannot ever be considered a smooth jazz artist; GW Jr and Metheny occasionally.
Not even Pieces of Dreams? I’d at least consider him a precursor, and he’s one of my favorites on the provided wiki list, so whatever. It’s my top 10 according to OP’s given parameters.
I love smooth jazz. Overall it’s probably my favorite type of music, although I don’t listen to it exclusively and wouldn’t want to. I like the work of virtually every musician mentioned in this thread plus many others, but my favorite by far is Paul Hardcastle, who writes, produces and records his music under both the Jazzmasters moniker and his own name.
Since I doubt most, if anyone here, is familiar with him I’ll post a link to the Jazzmasters 1 album which first brought him to my attention. The first tune, The Sound of Summer, was and remains an all time favorite, as does the album itself.
Thanks a bunch for all the input!
I thought I’d make a first pass at trying to narrow the list down to a Top Ten, but it’s not an easy task. These are folks I have in my music collection or who I’ve listened to enough to have an opinion about, that I’d want to be in consideration.
I may try to locate some others not on Wiki’s list that I’d like to see before going for that Top Ten:
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**List of smooth jazz musicians
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following artists and bands have performed smooth jazz.**
Saxophonists
Gato Barbieri
Candy Dulfer
Boney James
Najee
David Sanborn
Tom Scott
Grover Washington, Jr.
Kirk Whalum
Guitarists
George Benson
Larry Carlton
Joyce Cooling
Russ Freeman
Stanley Jordan
Earl Klugh
Pat Metheny
Lee Ritenour
Pianists/Keyboardists
David Benoit
Dave Grusin
Bob James
Ramsey Lewis
Joe Sample
Lonnie Liston Smith
Drummers and other percussionists
Steve Gadd
Omar Hakim
Bassists
Stanley Clarke
Marcus Miller
John Patitucci
Victor Wooten
Trumpeters / Flugelhornists
Herb Alpert
Chet Baker
Chris Botti
Flautists
Hubert Laws
Najee
Dave Valentin
Bands/Groups
Acoustic Alchemy
Fattburger
Fourplay
Four80East
The Rippingtons
Yellowjackets
Vocalists
Michael Bublé
Eliane Elias
Norah Jones
Diana Krall
Other Instruments
Eddie Daniels (Clarinet)
Bela Fleck (Banjo)
Andy Narell (Pan Drum)
Lee Oskar (Harmonica)
Jean-Luc Ponty (Violin)
I definitely recommend Bela Fleck, at least, from that list. (And Victor Wooten, who is the bassists in Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.) I’m not sure I’d call their music “smooth jazz,” though. I also quite enjoy Herb Alpert and Chet Baker but, once again, I don’t really think of them as smooth jazz. Chet Baker is more cool jazz and Herb Alpert, I’m not sure how I’d classify him.
I know what you mean in each case! The boundaries between Smooth Jazz and other niches of Jazz that are some steps away from the other Hard Jazz (if I may coin a phrase) sub-genres are fuzzy at best unless somebody can apply some meaningful adjectives to distinguish them.
I’m also unclear on just where and when those earliest distinctions became evident. I do know that (as I mentioned upthread) George Shearing was in my ear before I started grade school and he has remained there. The blurring of the line between Smooth Jazz and Space Age Pop is another distinction I find difficult to understand. I do know that some of that music was available in the 1950’s, if not earlier.
Just as a note in passing, The Wooten Brothers (Victor’s brothers) played at my daughter’s wedding reception! Bodacious musicians.
I’d rather say “in addition to” than “instead.”
Do you have some relevant adjectives to use in setting a dividing line between “cool” and “smooth”? Instruments, themes, distinctive sounds, rhythms, harmonies, intent, whatever?
If it matters, I have been a big fan of Cool Jazz since even before Kind of Blue (1959?) became the de facto standard of that school. I’m at a loss for what would have been the first recording in that style. Modal Jazz is another label applied to KOB, and I go for that as well.
My own personal impressions of “smooth jazz,” as exemplified by the type of music I’d hear on WNUA (a popular smooth jazz station in Chicago back in the 90s), is an easy-listening, pop form of jazz fusion that typically involved strong and easy to follow melody lines on a lead instrument such as saxophone or guitar, typically with an atmospheric synthesized backdrop (lots of “pads,” soft electric piano sounds, etc.), often with synthesized drums. Kind of a new-age-music-meets-jazz sort of thing or, perhaps a bit more dismissively, jazz elevator music.
Then again, there’s stuff like Charlie Hunter and Pound for Pound that fits the smooth jazz WNUA vibe, but is another artist that I wouldn’t classify as “smooth jazz.” (And he himself says it’s not a genre he strives to be associated with.)
Yeah! Background music that doesn’t tax your brain. The aural equivalent of a Sentsy Candle.
Not quite elevator music or Easy Listening, but easy enough to listen to while engaging in conversation or other pleasurable activities.
But, it must be also engaging enough to satisfy us while listening to it for its own sake.
YMMV of course.
It has occurred to me that Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool full jazz album predates Kind of Blue (at least the recording dates do) by a decade even though they were released closer to each other in the late 50’s ( see Birth of the Cool - Wikipedia for details) but the sounds of BOTC were being employed in other cool groups. So we can push the advent of Cool/Smooth a bit further back, if history matters.
This is an excellent description of what I get out of it. I wish I’d thought of it myself when asked in the past why I liked about smooth jazz.
I agree completely. Alpert went from his hugely successful Hispanic-influenced pop music to relative obscurity, but has reemerged with his wife Lani Hall as a bossa nova and jazz duo act. It’s kind of the reverse of what many jazz artists have done (going from jazz to pop in order to make a living), and Alpert almost seems to be surprised that he’s now playing jazz licks. We saw Alpert and Hall a couple of years ago here in Portland. His wind isn’t what it used to be, but they sounded great. Lani Hall hasn’t lost any of the vocal chops she showed with Sergio Mendes. I would never classify Brazilian music as smooth jazz.
Pretty much at the bottom of the list. I’m not a big fan of Jazz anyway. The older stuff seems a bit masturbatory, though in certain contexts and if I can discern that the musician isn’t just playing random notes, I like it well enough. Modern Smooth Jazz doesn’t have any redeeming qualities to me.
The thing is, people are going to disagree with me and ask, ‘What about [insert title]?’ Even with the Wiki link in the OP, the definition of Smooth Jazz is a bit nebulous to me. ‘I knows it when I hears it.’ There are what I call ‘classic Jazz’ songs that probably most people would call Smooth Jazz; but they’re different to me. I think pulykamell did a fair job of describing what I mean.
Seattle seems to be some kind of a Jazz hub. I listen to KPLU for NPR, but their daytime programming is Jazz. When the Jazz starts playing, I change the channel. I would much rather listen to Blues or Swing/Big Band.
Not to defecate in the punchbowl, but to me Smooth Jazz is like Muzak.