cminor7b5
2005-08-01 00:42:35 UTC
Apparently Pat is NOT a big Kenny G fan.
Pat Metheney on Kenny G.
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, fucked 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, shit 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 dissmis
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.)
Pat Metheney on Kenny G.
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, fucked 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, shit 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 dissmis
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.)