he's mad as hell, and he's not gonna take it anymore: Pat Metheny v. the G-man

Jul 21 23:19 UTC 2000

<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.

response 2 of 50:

Jul 21 23:43 UTC 2000

kenny g makes great elevator music.  far superior to don ho

response 4 of 50:

Jul 22 20:05 UTC 2000

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. ;-)

response 6 of 50:

Jul 22 21:16 UTC 2000

Metheny was asked his opinion, and that is what he supplied.

response 8 of 50:

Jul 22 21:37 UTC 2000

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.

response 10 of 50:

Jul 23 00:01 UTC 2000

so that about puts the screws to a lot of book reviews then

response 12 of 50:

Jul 23 01:11 UTC 2000

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?

response 14 of 50:

Jul 23 02:57 UTC 2000

is this _south_park_ meets _babylon_five_?

response 16 of 50:

Jul 23 06:49 UTC 2000

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.

response 18 of 50:

Jul 23 11:41 UTC 2000

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.

response 20 of 50:

Jul 23 15:27 UTC 2000

It's funny.  I am a big Sarah Brightman fan, but it's the 'real' opera
singers who think *she's* the neophyte.

response 22 of 50:

Jul 23 15:51 UTC 2000

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.

response 24 of 50:

Jul 24 09:29 UTC 2000

'perhaps with less chutzpah' may be among p.m.'s points about g.