<special thanks to les rollins, who forwarded me this gem> 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 maj or 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 keys 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, play 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 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 insigificant 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.) 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. (it’s 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. g’s 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.50 responses total.
next week: kenny g's retort, "what to do with my new asshole"
kenny g makes great elevator music. far superior to don ho
I've never quite understood how folks can get their panties in a bunch over Kenny G. He may not be to my taste but lots of people seem to enjoy his music. Are they wrong? Can you be "wrong" about music? Mostly I just think it's jealousy. Most folks who rag on about how plastic his stuff is probably can't play a recorder. Too, I think there is another component. Kenny G is a somewhat effeminate male. This tends to put people off. If he was a Cassandra G, same music, same fame, I don't think he/she'd be nearly as reviled. We'd feel differently about that saccharine sweet music coming from something dressed in a gauzy gown with cleavage. We'd expect it, actually.
I dunno, Pat Metheney knows his shit and lays it out pretty well. Pat is also nowhere near an unknown in either the world of jazz or pop culture in general. Maybe he just has the guts to say what others wont. ;-)
resp:3 'we'? certainly there's a lot of music i hear and dismiss because it isn't to the liking of my personal tastes. willie nelson, for example; some of his stuff i really dig, but for the most part i don't enjoy him. yet i know it has more to do with my reaction to his voice, which is gentler than what i prefer with country musicians, than the quality of his music. unless i'm at a wedding reception or watching a movie about wwII, i don't care much for the arrangements of glenn miller. it's too 'pizazzy' for me. yet i know that glenn miller is a spectacular musician, and understand why people admire and respect the music he's responsible for. joni mitchell i've never cared for, yet i know it isn't her music so much as her approach to the bluesy/folksy underbelly of the world that i don't get along with, not her musical ability. and so on. i agree you can't be "wrong" about music, whether listening or playing, and i don't think metheny would disagree entirely (he pointed out that he had no real opinion about kenny g or his music until the 'satchmo incident'), except that his acknowledged personal tastes would be based on a much more complex musical rubrick. i think this has more to do with industry than it does with music, and more to do with kenny g being a tool posing as a musician than with how many fans he has. now, kenny g outselling pat metheny (i'm guessing that he does, but i don't know that), having a larger fan-base and altogether greater fame, being an effeminate, glammy male in a culture that is not always friendly to such attributes, these are reasons why pat metheny should not criticize his music, or peg him as a phony? maybe it could be asked "who does pat metheny think he is, speaking out as though the voice of satch were channelling through him?" perhaps. metheny isn't the strongest element in the jazz continuum. what, then, is the smarmier aesthetic insult, speaking in defense of a dead artist from a snobbish pillar of sophistication, or using a song the dead artist recorded, one that still gets a lot of airplay on its own, not as a parody or an homage or a cover, but reprocessed as a duet? all of which tells me that kenny g, and those who dig his music, are excellent targets for all forms of ridicule, from here to eternity.
Metheny was asked his opinion, and that is what he supplied.
most folks are suprised to learn that glenn miller is considered a jazz artist. i can't play a lick on a trombone but i sure has hell can when someone else is playing it badly.
my friend's stepmom will occasionally make fun of me for something i said 5 years ago. "do you mind if i play some tony bennett?" she said to me, back then. "sure, i love jazz," i said. her ridicule is based on my confusing tony bennett for jazz. she lives in flat rock. i can overlook her error.
The whole tone of the Metheny interview is one of sour grapes. Someone who is supposedly superior to another should keep his or her mouth shut about the supposedly inferior person. Denigrating someone's work is not a good way to win folks to your side.
so that about puts the screws to a lot of book reviews then
kenny g having ANYTHING to do with satchmo is an abomination.
The real question is, where did KG get the rights to use that original LA recording, and who sold them to him? Armstrong's estate?
Kenny G gets killed in the latest _Babylon Park_ episode.
is this _south_park_ meets _babylon_five_?
((( Summer Agora #349 <--> Music #273 )))
It sounds like Pat Metheny had been waiting a long time for Kenny G to do something like a Louis Armstrong overdub. It also sounds like Metheny would have been happier if G had overdubbed "Dem Dere Eyes," or some other Armstrong classic, and I think it would have served Metheny better to wait for just such a sacrilege, even if it never came. But he just couldn't wait any longer, obviously. I grew up listening to my dad's Okeh 78s of Armstrong. I am going to disagree with Mary's position that you can't be "wrong" about music. You can. You may argue about the gray areas and about who sets the standards, but at the very least there is genius and there is dreck, and if you champion the dreck, you're wrong. Simple as that. Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" is dreck. It's the aged master appealing to the lowest and commonest taste. He did it for the perfectly understable purpose of paying his bills, but is there any honest lover of Armstrong's music who can listen to "WAWW" without squirming in embarrassment? There were other Armstrong forays into the Top 40: "Hello Dolly" retains a glimmer of the Armstrong wit and style; "Mack the Knife" is a small masterpiece. A Kenny G overdub of either of those singles would have been sacrilegious. But "WAWW"? Puh-leez. Water seeks its own level. "WAWW" is the only Armstrong recording Kenny G could've gotten away with sliming. So, nauseating smarm is all Kenny G does; Louis Armstrong descended to it only that once. So what? Karma, old man. He has to be laughing his ass off in whatever paradise he now inhabits. Mind you, I haven't actualy *heard* the Kenny G overdub and have no intention of listening to it. I imagine it as something like the passage in Milton where sin gave birth to death. But it can't be more vulgar than Metheny's us-against-them pontificating -- with Metheny's wishful "us" club consisting of John Coltrane and Metheny himself, as if "Phase Dance" and "Giant Steps" belong right next to each other. As if.
re: 3 -- It depends on the person. I don't necessarily wish him great harm, but I don't think he's done anything that your average high school band student couldn't play. I played tenor sax for about 8 years, and soprano (which Kenny G usually plays) for about 4. I'm no virtuoso by any definition of the term, but it's insulting to hear people say "Now Kenny G...HE can play the sax!". Think of it like this...pretend you're a big Sarah Brightman fan, and everyone you know thinks that Britney Spears is the Second Coming in terms of female vocalists.
Who decides whose tastes are right and wrong, Michael? And based on what criteria? I've never heard a Brightman or Spears song so I'm not qualified for the job.
Al DiMeola would whip Kenny G's behind in a solo ensemble competition.
It's funny. I am a big Sarah Brightman fan, but it's the 'real' opera singers who think *she's* the neophyte.
one of the biggest laughs i ever had, using the knowledge gained from years of studying the trumpet, was the listening to one of the first george winston albums. he was all the rage. the people who had me listen to the ablum were all a giggle over how wonderful it was. they looked at me as if i had just shot their dog when i burst out laughing. on one of the cuts he is playing over-orchestrated piano scales. now, it could be that i found his stuff crap, which i did, and i didn't know what i was talking about (often this is true) but years later i am sitting with a collegue in a san francisco restaurant. the topic of music came up and he disclosed to those gathered that in a former life he had been a professional musician. when george winston was mentioned, he floored me by saying - oh, that guy that plays scales? it was nice to be validated.
As a sometimes pro musician myself, I'll agree it's usually easy to tell when somebody is faking it for money. Some of the people doing it are technically quite good, but how can anybody really enjoy playing music that repetitive? There's money in it, quite good money actually. Where do you suppose all that Muzak comes from? It's actually an industry. Story: My main instrument is bass guitar, which I came to from double bass in orchestra. I've been playing off and on for 20+ years, and while I've got my weaknesses I'm quite competent. I used to do sound for bands, and one o6f the bass players I knew from one of the bands was a pretty good but not fantastic player. A couple years after the band he was in had broken up and disappeared from the area, the bass player turned up in an opening act for some big show. He had a fancy 6 string bass by now, and a very nice haircut. His solo was the most laughable thing I've seen in a while, but it *looked* like he was doing something really tricky.
Re: Kenny G outselling Pat Methany. According to RIAA.com, Kenny G has sold 44.5 million albums, career, while Methany doesn't make the "top artists" list (which stops at N Sync at 20 million). So Kenny G has sold at least twise as many, probably more. Re: Sour grapes and "supposedly superior" people dissing "supposedly inferior." Bullshit. Methany has a right to his opinion, and a right to express it. It doesn't show that you're "better than" somebody else when you don't criticize them for being less artistic, intelligent, well-reasoned, vivacious, or whatever... *shrug* I personally couldn't care less what Methany has to say about Kenny G, though, because I've never been "turned on" to Methany... I've never heard enough of his music to form an opinion. What I've heard of Kenny G's seems aesthetic enough, if not all that technically advanced. Somebody's gotta record the easy stuff.
'perhaps with less chutzpah' may be among p.m.'s points about g.
Spice Girls sold many albums too. What's the point?
yeah, look at elwood parsley.
#25> *My* point was inreference to somebody earlier suggesting that Methany was just rippin' on Kenny 'cuz Kenny sold more albums, but that somebody didn't know what the comparable sales were, so I was verifyin' that yes, indeed, Kenny has sold many more. Of course, record sales mean nothing about talent... doesn't even necessarily mean that much about long-term popularity. While The Beatles are #1, Elvis ain't #2 -- that belongs to Garth, who in 20 years probably won't be remember ed anywhere near as fondly as Elvis (and, ironically, it's roughly the same demographic that made each famous, and a different "same demographic" that made each rich).
It's a Walmart world. :)
I took Metheny's views to be less of a reasonable criticism than sour grapes. If his music is so superior, he should let the music speak for itself. To get into a pissing contest about it just diminishes him.
maybe i was being a bit obtuse. if you read book reviews you will find many are written by authors writing in the same field. not all of them are complimentary. same difference. he was expressing his opinion. are you suggesting that he is not entitled to one?
Re #14: Yes.
Kenny G. is cotton-candy music: looks good, but no substance. I own a couple of his CDs, so I am qualified to talk. Pat Metheny has quite a bit of range, and is easily ten times the musician that Kenny G. is. (Don't believe me? Listen to "Secret Story", "Imaginary Day" and "I can see your house from here" and see the kind of stuff Metheny gets into.) If Metheny says KG is a poseur, it's a pretty authoritative opinion. Except for one noise-guitar album, I've not found anything by Metheny that wasn't a keeper.
re #30: I don't think it is the same difference. Criticism does not have to tinged with bitterness over someone else's success. #0 sounds to me as though Metheny thinks he's more "worthy" of the fame and the money than G is. He may be, but I'm sorry, doesn't sit well with me.
I read #0, rather than merely scanning it, and would like to say that Danr's criticism depends on Methany interspersing "and I'm great" at the end of every paragraph. Methany does no such thing. Indeed, the bulk of the coents read as a music critic/historian/lover, not as a musician. A few times, indeed, Methany refers to his own career (notably at the end), bu for the most part h sticks to comments like "Kenny G isn't Armstrong""" and "Kenny G isn't HHancock"... In fact, Methany seems to suggest that if he himself (Pat, that is) were to overdub Armstrong, hed be entitled to the same tongue-lashing he promises Kenny.
My point is that Metheny should have stuck to his criticism of the overdubbing and not gotten into all that other shit. It had no real purpose, but to try to tear the guy down, and I still say it reads like sour grapes. It's as though Thomas Pynchon decided to criticize Barbara Cartland for writing trashy romance novels. What's the point?
the point is that reviews are subjective opinions and you are allowed not to agree with them. in fact, they can be quite useful. take christopher potter, the sometimes movie reviewer in the a2 snooze. 99% of the time if he pans a movie i rush out to see it. i know i am going to enjoy it.
If somebody asked Thomas Pynchon, "I understand you don't like Barbara Cartland's writing. Could you tell me why?" I certainly wouldn't expect Pynchon to say, "Well, honestly, it's just not constructive to comment on that." It's not as if Methany wasn't ASKED for an opinion. Methany loves music. He was asked why he wasn't impressed with Kenny G's music. He responded. The only "sour grapes" I see in #0 is where Methany comments that he used Kenny G's music -- unprovoked -- as a representation of stupid music. that would be like Pynchon teaching a lit class and using Cartland as an example of "what not to do." The reason being plain: Kenny G (and Cartland) are extremely popular, so obviously they're doing SOMETHING right. As much as I dislike Britney, N'Sync, and the like musically, it's fairly obvious that they're hitting SOME sort of chord with the public, else they wouldn't be getting any sales at all. Musical talent aside, they clearly have marketing and presentation skills, if nothing else... while they may fail (and that's a subjective opinion) at the art of music, they succeed at the business of entertainment, and that's gotta count for SOMETHING. Instead, Methany should be hanging about in the cutout bins and finding bad and commercially unsuccessful music, because that fails on BOTH counts (being neither artistic nor entertaining).
I don't know Pat Metheny and, that I know of, have never heard his music. Evidently, the opinion he gave, as printed here, is a follow-up to comments he'd made earlier. I suspect he didn't need to be asked to go off on Kenny G rather that it came quite easily. The tone of his review isn't scholastic as much as bitter and angry and pissed as hell that someone is not respecting and pursuing what he sees as True Jazz. He is very much entitled to his point of view. I read it all. Sorry, he sounds like a child with a bruised ego who just found out his way doesn't rule. He also isn't very succinct and tends to ramble some not saying as much as his words imply. But that's okay, lots of people do that, and I could have stopped reading at any time.
I'll grant that it does come off in general too personal and not considered enough. *shrug* I don't mean to sound like I'm defending Methany. I'm not. I have no feelings one way or the other. I'm responding to Danr's general claim that people who (rightly or wrongly) are seen as experts or leaders in an art shouldn't (with or without provocation) fully criticize people who (rightly or wrongly) are seen as superficial or "commercial" contributors to an art.... which is how I interpreted, in this context, his comments that "people who are superior shouldn't criticize people who are inferior." Whether Methany's comments are provoked or not, all we have to judge by here is the fact that, he was asked a question, and he responded to that question.
That last comment isn't really true. Whenever someone answers a question or makes a comment, you evaluate it on several levels. There are the words themselves and the way in which those words are delivered. If this interview had been filmed, there would also be the tone of voice and the body language being used when answering the question. Having said that, I should perhaps modify my comment about people who think they are superior criticizing those who they feel are inferior. They have every right to criticize work they feel is inferior or out of line (i.e. Kenny G's overdubbing of Louis Armstrong), but when that criticism become a personal attack, the criticism demeans the critic. Did Metheny personally attack Kenny G? It sounds to me like he's doing that, but your interpretation may vary.
i wonder if passion is being mistaken for pettiness? i have no way of knowing but does anyone?
That's certainly possible, and I'm willing to give Metheny the benefit of the doubt on that.
#40> Your evaluation is still limited to the communication ... Of course, someone's response isn't just limited to the contents of the words selected. Based on your amendment, I agree with your comments.
Having owned both Kenny G and Pat Metheny and having seen both in concert, I undersatnd where Pat is coming from. I don't think it's sour graes - I think it's him voicing his opinion. I think that Kenny G is stupid music - I think that Pat Metheny is an amazing musician, both solo and with the Pat Metheny group. But then, this is all subjective, ISN"T it?
d'oh
not ALL, but plenty 'nuff.
Hear, hear, Brooke.
Guitarist Adrian Legg had a few rude, funny put-downs of Kenny G at his Ark show this week. It's probably fortunate that I can't remember what they are, due to libel laws. :)
Damn, now I'm going to have to listen to some Kenny G., just to verify for myself that he really does play consistently sharp. Sharpness is more annoying to my ear than flatness...
Don't do it Leslie!!!
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