I like to work out in the late afternoon and the health club pipes in “smooth jazz” to the men’s locker room. It get’s really annoying because it seems that this genre of music is characterized by bad saxaphone playing. There’s a monotany of some idiot screeching a note on a saxaphone and holding it over and over and over. . .
I suppose that it is an imitation of, and tribute to, the god of bad saxaphone players, Kenny G.
I love jazz saxaphone but this crap gets to be like fingernails on a chalkboard. Can’t “smooth jazz” be moved away from requiring an inept saxaphone player so that it is not so annoying?
I would say that “hot jazz” (the antithesis of smooth jazz) attracts bad saxophonists. To my ear, all they play is short bursts of random notes. It is harder to play long sustained notes with a beautiful tone.
I guess you’re complaining about the style, not the technique of sax playing?
Bottom line is that it is a question of taste. To me and many other musicians, smooth jazz is abhorrent because of the schmaltzy phrasing of the lead instrument - often saxophone - and the cheesy arrangements. The music is pandering - almost like some bad pickup artist. Musicians tend not to like it because it is not challenging and many think it is a total sellout.
Having said that, there is a HUGE market for it and the musicians who do “sell out” and get successful can end up multi-millionaires. And trust me, musicians respect that.
Ultimately, YMMV - there is no correct answer. But sparky I do sympathize with you - hearing that crap makes me cringe.
Well, to me, “hot” jazz is music that I would associate with Django and Stephan Grappelli, certainly not the likes of Kenny G. “Smooth” jazz seems like a style where a sax just plays as many meaningless notes as possible over rather bland chord changes. Not stimulating, requires no thought, makes the perfect background noise for driving in the mini-van yakking on the cell phone. Perfect.
“Meaningless notes” sort of remotely implies improvisation and I wouldn’t want to give even that much cred to this crap. Kenny G has done for jazz what Mantovani did for the Beatles.
I was just listening to The Yellowjackets and have come to the conclusion that the presence of a (usually soprano) sax is what causes smooth jazz to become terrible. There is, otherwise, a small amount of decent smooth jazz. With the Yellowjackets, whenever saxman Bob Mintzer is not playing everything is cool. Then Mintzer comes in with an oversweet tone, overly legato phrasing and the classic smooth jazz echo, and everything goes to hell. I blame Kenny G for destroying the critical musical faculties of a generation and suggest he should be tries for crimes against art.
I should note that when playing “proper” jazz Bob Mintzer is actually a pretty decent player, but the label “smooth” seems to cancel out any talent that a player might have when the label is not applied
I am frequently amazed at the pour basic techniques that many a professional sax player displays.
Basic embouchure work is needed by quite a few of them. Their tone is strained or forced sounding. The solo on the Billy Joel standard Just the Way You Are is a beautiful sound, and it doesn’t matter if he is playing sustained tones or a rapid succession of notes.