Jazz

[Ibanez]

I created this thread for the discussion of jazz or anything related to it. Hopefully, there will be some jazz fans on this forum. Which brings up a question why don't people like jazz?

Also is anyone a jazz musician?

[Angela]

I'm a talented listener, not a musician. I assume you're a guitar player?

My main jazz interests are of the Metheny, Hancock, Brecker (may he rest in peace!), Steps Ahead, Medeski Martin Wood, Tribal Tech variety. But I'm open. You?

[Ibanez]

Originally Posted by Angela

I'm a talented listener, not a musician. I assume you're a guitar player?

Yeah, I'm a guitar player, I have been playing for roughly 12 years, I'm 20ish. I've always liked jazz so I figured I know some music theory anyway so I might as well make the leap.

My main jazz interests are of the Metheny, Hancock, Brecker (may he rest in peace!), Steps Ahead, Medeski Martin Wood, Tribal Tech variety. But I'm open. You?

I like metheny, Al di meola, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Louie Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, John Scofield, Dizzy Gillespie (sp?), Coltrane, Parker, could throw more in from a radio station I listen to but I'm not always attentive when they say who they are playing.

I know some people classify that muppet looking guy (Kenny G) as a jazz musician, but he isn't. I know metheny wrote an essay on him stating how he is a lame musician and such, I'll agree.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Ibanez

I know some people classify that muppet looking guy (Kenny G) as a jazz musician, but he isn't. I know metheny wrote an essay on him stating how he is a lame musician and such, I'll agree.

Then you and I are already friends.

[TheColonel]

I studied jazz guitar under Jimmy Raney and Scott Henderson about 20 years ago for a while. Raney had interesting stories about Tal Farlow and Bird, and he had a real innate sense of economy.

My theory on why jazz isn't popular is this: You can't hum along, dance to it, perform it via karaoke, or half the time even tap your foot to it. It's non-interactive.

Unless you have some understanding of music theory, it's also hard to appreciate what's going on.

Kenny G is okay for his audience. It's 'light' jazz. Does he still have a mullet?

[TheColonel]

Why would Pat Metheny write an essay about anyone stating how lame they are? That's kind of lame, if you ask me...

[Angela]

Originally Posted by TheColonel

Why would Pat Metheny write an essay about anyone stating how lame they are? That's kind of lame, if you ask me...

Pat was incensed after Mr. Gorelick overdubbed his own sax playing over a recording of Louis Armstrong's recording of "Wonderful World," which struck him as musical vandalism. He chastised him for his arrogance and bad taste and for playing consistently and horribly out of tune. He didn't actually say he was lame.

[TheColonel]

Thank God Pat Metheny is around to police the music industry against bad taste.

[Angela]

Thank god Pat Metheny is around, period. His music is one of the joys in my life!

("thank god" is used here as a linguistic norm adaption -- like saying "bless you" when someone sneezes)

[Ibanez]

Here's the essay....

Pat Metheny on Kenny G
Question:

Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely - but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems.
Pat's Answer:

Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.

I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.

But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.

Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement.

Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It's just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may.

And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential.

As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well.

But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all "until recently".

Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track "What a Wonderful World". With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music.

This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him - and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.

But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, ************ed up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, ************ all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril.

His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring.

Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this little essay.

Normally, I feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. but, this is different.

There ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that. (I am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics - where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!, magazines, etc.). Everything I said here is exactly the same as what I would say to Gorelick if I ever saw him in person. and if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.)

[Ibanez]

NOTE: this post is partially in response to the comments that people have made regarding a short video interview excerpt with me that was posted on the internet taken from a tv show for young people (kind of like MTV)in poland where i was asked to address 8 to 11 year old kids on terms that they could understand about jazz. while enthusiastically describing the virtues of this great area of music, i was encouraging the kids to find and listen to some of the greats in the music and not to get confused by the sometimes overwhelming volume of music that falls under the jazz umbrella. i went on to say that i think that for instance, kenny g plays the dumbest music on the planet – something that all 8 to 11 year kids on the planet already intrinsically know, as anyone who has ever spent any time around kids that age could confirm - so it gave us some common ground for the rest of the discussion. (ADDENDUM: the only thing wrong with the statement that i made was that i did not include the rest of the known universe.) the fact that this clip was released so far out of the context that it was delivered in is a drag, but it is now done. (its unauthorized release out of context like that is symptomatic of the new electronically interconnected culture that we now live in - where pretty much anything anyone anywhere has ever said or done has the potential to become common public property at any time.) i was surprised by the polish people putting this clip up so far away from the use that it was intended -really just for the attention - with no explanation of the show it was made for - they (the polish people in general) used to be so hip and would have been unlikely candidates to do something like that before, but i guess everything is changing there like it is everywhere else. the only other thing that surprised me in the aftermath of the release of this little interview is that ANYONE would be even a little bit surprised that i would say such a thing, given the reality of mr. gs music. this makes me want to go practice about 10 times harder, because that suggests to me that i am not getting my own musical message across clearly enough - which to me, in every single way and intention is diametrically opposed to what Kenny G seems to be after.

[Angela]

Now, Ibanez, what do you think of The Bad Plus? I've really been loving their music -- so inventive and original. No guitar, but I know you won't hold that against them.

[TheColonel]

Wow, lol.

I never knew Pat Metheny was such a self-absorbed, judgemental, elitist, venom-spitting shrew of a hen. And yes, I know he was born a man.

Who gives a f### what Kenny G does? Sheesh. Ignore him, for God's sake. Is it Pat Metheny's job to maintain the status quo in the insufferable echelons of the jazz cognescenti? Brother.

Now I remember why I lost interest in jazz. There's this strange belief that you must not be too popular, or popular in the wrong way.

So what if he plays on top of the notes? Lots of musicians do. And as far as what scales and modalities he plays, so what???

Those cross-over type artists take a lot of heat for "selling out." In reality, they generate a lot of interest in genres that need new fans. For example, when I was 12, I saw 'The Blues Brothers.'

Crappy band, songs and movie, right? Well that movie/album eventually led me to Robert Johnson, Jazz and a whole other world that I never would have cared about. I might still be listening to Black Sabbath.

Pat Metheny needs to (as Frank Zappa might've said) "Shut up and play yer guitar."

[Angela]

Hey, Ibanez -- an incredible concert last night: Paco de Lucia and his gang at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Holy smokes! That man communicates such passion, directly and movingly. I had tears streaming down my face, this music was so gorgeous. His keyboardist knocked me out -- he played some kind of weird harmonica that sounded like a vacation on the mediterranean.

It's amazing to me that such a talent can exist.

[Ibanez]

Originally Posted by Angela

Now, Ibanez, what do you think of The Bad Plus? I've really been loving their music -- so inventive and original. No guitar, but I know you won't hold that against them.

I don't think I've heard them. I'll have to check them out.