Smooth Jazz Sound

[sideC]

First off, I have to agree with BB. Black people born without soul are trying to deal with life under a tremendous handicap. But this may be remedied if these people DON'T listen to smooth jazz saxophone. Long periods of listening to Sweet Papa Lou, Earl Bostic, and Illinois Jacquet just might offset the lack of good grooves and feeling into the hearts and minds of those in need of a soul transfusion.

But I have to say that I'm a black man, and I used to have a ball hanging out with David Hartman! He used to come and hear a band I was leading at the Tavern On The Green in NYC, and he loved jazz. He used to bring his son, an aspiring drummer to hear Dave Gibson, the drummer I was using, and they would hang until after the gig was over and we would sit at a table and talk. He was very knowledgable about the music, and had very good ears.

I don't agree with the statement that Kenny G "almost single handedly brought the soprano sax back into vogue." You have to give that credit to John Coltrane. And Grover Washington opened the door the rest of the way. Kenny G was a very late arrival to the party. I remember listening to an interview of Steve Lacy done at WBGO just a week or so before his death. He mentioned how Coltrane started the trend, and how he, Steve Lacy, was so happy to see new sopranos on display in music stores, something he never saw when he was holding down the fort back in the 1950's.

I remember Grover running around Philly blowing the stew out of an old curved Conn soprano back in the late '60s. By the early '70's, he was a big star, and featuring a new mk6 sop on his records and live gigs. Grover, me, and many of my friends were buying sopranos in the late '60's and early '70s because of John Coltrane. And Grover made the sound of the soprano more palatable to the pop music record buying public. And he was selling LOTS of recordings of his soprano playing.

Julian

[SOTSDO]

By one measure, Mr. G is way ahead of the rest of us. Despite the lack of content in his performances, they are better attended (and more profitable) than the "legitimate" content spilled out by others of the true jazz church. I'd not like to have to handle his performance schedule (such as I know of it), but he seems to be managing pretty well.

Push comes to shove, those looking for "jazz-like" music for an event are far more likely to look for a Kenny G clone than they are for someone of the Charlie Parker school. Like classical music, "true jazz" has become a closed church with naysayers throwing up objections to those who don't fit their purist concepts. Kenny G music may not fit this characterization, but it is "listen-able", particularly when compared to most "real" jazz.

From an analytic standpoint, you might prefer non-Kenny G like content, but that's just your opinion. You are allowed to like what you want (I happen to like early 1900's "hot" music - after ragtime, if you will. An acquired taste, if you will.), but you can't force your views on others. If that was the case, we'd all be subsumed into the hip-hop world...

(Incidentally, on the clarinet board there are occasional outbreaks of hatred (in their own, subdued way) for various performers who don't meet the poster's preconceived idea of how a clarinet player should sound. Usually, the attacks are reserved for Aker Bilk, but I've seen Pete Fountain, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and various pure classical folks assaulted from time to time. Jazz folks are a bit more vicious, but I always get the impression that classical folks hold the same passion, but represent it differently.)

[pete]

I don't agree with the statement that Kenny G "almost single handedly brought the soprano sax back into vogue." You have to give that credit to John Coltrane. And Grover Washington opened the door the rest of the way. Kenny G was a very late arrival to the party. I remember listening to an interview of Steve Lacy done at WBGO just a week or so before his death. He mentioned how Coltrane started the trend, and how he, Steve Lacy, was so happy to see new sopranos on display in music stores, something he never saw when he was holding down the fort back in the 1950's.

I remember the 1980's exceptionally well. Kenny G was EVERYWHERE. Shortly thereafter, there were a zillion folks that were producing sopranos. Coltrane was performing at the very end of the "Jazz Era". In 1967, when Coltrane died, you still didn't have the "explosion" in the soprano market. Yamaha wasn't doing much (the YSS-61 was introduced in 1974). Yanagisawa came out with their first soprano in 1968. Buescher had been sold to Selmer USA and probably wouldn't even custom-make a soprano for you. Martin and HN White hadn't had sopranos for years. Conn would make one for you -- if you didn't mind the design was from the 1920's. Keilwerth would custom make one for you, if you didn't mind waiting 6 months. Selmer was producing sopranos ... but they were only Mark VIs: the sopranino, soprano, bari and bass being unpopular enough that Selmer didn't bother transitioning them to the Mark VII design. (Yes, I do know that there are a handful of Mark VIIs in these pitches.)

You could argue that Kenny G just came along at the right time, that the invasion of Chinese and Japanese soprano saxophones just happened to ... happen ... at the height of the G-man's popularity. But I don't think it was because of Coltrane.

[sideC]

I make no argument to the point that more poeple attend a Kenny G concert than a Ravi Coltrane concert. I don't see that as an endorsement of the quality or worth of the music. After all, more people watch television than go to the art museum.

As far as the numbers of soprano saxophones purchased after the death of John Coltrane in '67, there were a lot of used sopranos on the market that alto and tenor players were snapping up. Old military and school district horns and whatnot. Remember, Grover was playing an old curved Conn back then. Lots of old Conns, Buescher, Holton, and other brands were magically materializing from the dusty storerooms of music stores, and were put to use playing "My Favorite Things" and "Central Park West," and "Naima."

I remember the 1980's pretty well myself. As a matter of fact, I remember one particular day in 1980 or '81 when I was onstage working with Grover Washington. He was a big star by that time, he had pretty much single handedly popularized the music we call smooth jazz today. As we left the stage that day, he thrust his new black Keilwerth soprano into my hands, telling me to "try it." The horn was brand new, it replaced the mk6 he'd been playing all through the 1970's. So he already had a long track record on the soprano by then.

I say it again. Grover established the "smooth Jazz" soprano sound long before Kenny G. And Trane brought the soprano out of the storeroom.

By the way, Grover's black Keilwerth was simply incredible. One of the best saxophones of any size I've ever played.

Julian

[SOTSDO]

I recall sopranos being ordered for college music programs (for the jazz lab bands) after the mid-1960's. Of the five programs that I worked with, all of them had picked up one or two by around 1965 or so.

While Coltrane may have slightly spiked soprano sales (try saying that four times fast) to a certain extent with the jazz crowd, the great sales spike occurred once Master Kenny came on the scene. Once that happened, you started having kids show up in school systems wanting to play soprano in the band - a real nightmare for school systems built around anything but soprano saxes.

The sales information from Yamaha that I've seen points in this direction as well. I bought my soprano well ahead of the curve (the parts were just starting to show up in shows like Annie), but never got into the scene surrounding the 'Trane, so jazz kind of passed me by. (The whole drug-addled aspect of it all put me off.)

When the parts started to taper off, I sold it to buy the infamous car to please the infamous first wife that both turned out to be lemons. I just hope whoever ended up with it put it to good use - and wish that the same could be said for the car and the wife...

[pete]

I make no argument to the point that more poeple attend a Kenny G concert than a Ravi Coltrane concert. I don't see that as an endorsement of the quality or worth of the music. After all, more people watch television than go to the art museum.

I'm definitely not going there and I didn't think I was implying that. I don't "endorse" Kenny G in any way, shape or form, especially not after THIS.

As we left the stage that day, he thrust his new black Keilwerth soprano into my hands, telling me to "try it." The horn was brand new, it replaced the mk6 he'd been playing all through the 1970's. So he already had a long track record on the soprano by then .... By the way, Grover's black Keilwerth was simply incredible. One of the best saxophones of any size I've ever played.

Oh, you mean this horn? The colored lacquers were rather uncommon, but I think it's quite pretty.

I say it again. Grover established the "smooth Jazz" soprano sound long before Kenny G. And Trane brought the soprano out of the storeroom.

I think you're confusing "establishment" with "popularize". Walk up to a random person (not one of your sax playing friends) and ask him if he knows who Kenny G is. Then ask him if he knows who Grover Washington is.

I thank SOTSDO for agreeing with my point: while Coltrane and Grover Washington may have spiked soprano sales a little, the sales numbers and addition of dozens of other Chinese/Japanese/Taiwanese manufacturers in the 1980's support that Kenny G popularized the soprano more. Additionally, Coltrane and Grover Washington -- to me, at least -- are better known for their tenor playing. Kenny G does play tenor, as well, but he's more known for soprano.

As a side note, I've mentioned many times that my main horn has been bari. I've told people on more than one occasion that I play bari. The response is almost always, "Oh, you mean like Kenny G?" Erm. No, but we both play saxophones. I've also disappointed folks when I bring out my bari and they're expecting a soprano.

[SOTSDO]

In addition to getting the wrong impression across with my baritone, I often (as in "once on every band job") get asked if my shiny (all silver plated keywork and bell/neck and thus pretty impressive looking) Selmer model 33 extended range bass clarinet is a saxophone.

As much as I would like to set each questioner straight with my canned synopsis history of the bass clarinet, I am usually too shot at that point in the evening to mutter more than "No, it's a bass clarinet." Sometimes, art has to take a back seat to exhaustion...

[SOTSDO]

And, I (in turn) have to thank Pete for bringing up something that I feel we (the saxophonic world) tend to forget when engaged in discussions like this. That is the point of view of the observer other than ourselves.

Kenny G has achieved one thing that Hawkins, Coltrane, Dolphy, Jacquette and the others will never attain, even in a combined fashion. G has serious penetration into the real world, not just the music world.

Mind you, it's an easy mistake to make. We are so accustomed to our world, whatever that world might be, that we project the impressions we have onto the rest of the world. However, those out in the rest of the world are far more likely to care about Taylor Swift's latest album than they are about some jazz icon from the musty past.

I would submit that Coltrane was part of a movement that popularized the soprano with musicians. However, I was influenced by an icon of earlier music, one Charlie Barnett, when I added a soprano to my ATB order in the early 1960's. Reconcile that with the great jazz tradition.

(Charlie was one hell of a guy. I sought out his autobiography a few years ago (My Swinging Years, I believe), and you have to love a book that starts out a chapter with the words "After another brief marriage..." At one point in the 1950's or 60's, he was living in a threesome arrangement in Paris. Wow!)

And, I didn't do it because it was cool or hep or hip. I bought mine because I liked the sound. Go figure...

[sideC]

My television reference was in response to SOTSDO's statement about the larger numbers and bigger ticket receipts enjoyed by Mr. G as compared to the straight ahead jazz artist. The first paragraph of his post right after my second post seems to allude to this. I'm just saying quality, not quantity.

Yes, the black Keilwerth sop that you posted is pretty close to the one Grover owned and played for all those years. But Grover's had the palm keys set up just like the mk6, the inline setup. They weren't the straight keys like the one in your picture. I went to the big stores on 48th st in NYC right after I blew GW's, and they had a few that they let me try. But they all had the straight palm keys, and they all blew stuffy compared to GW's. So maybe Grover's was custom in some kind of way. Man that horn had the goods.

My position is that the soprano saxophone was out of the woods before KG. Did you know that Coltrane's recording of "My Favorite Things" was edited down to fit both sides of a 45rpm single, and it turned out to be a gold record? That's a million 45's sold. Back in 1961 into '62. Atlantic records was no joke, their distrubution arm was a mighty thing. And they had a top quality product to work with in this case.

And did you know that Grover spent more that 40 weeks a year on the road? Year after year. Somebody had to know who he was. He had at least one Grammy and quite a few gold alblums. So he had a very strong following. And again, you have to consider the street level popularity that you mention. Walk up to somebody on the street in Europe, or in Asia, or in Africa, or the sub continent, and KG's name recognition is bound to be far below JC or GW. Art may not be well appreciated here in the States, but it's still respected in most other parts of the world.

It all goes back to the American jazz musicians. And if you are talking about anything in American music, it all really goes back to Louis Armstrong. You just have to be serious and through with your research.

Julian

[sideC]

Kenny G has achieved one thing that Hawkins, Coltrane, Dolphy, Jacquette and the others will never attain, even in a combined fashion. G has serious penetration into the real world, not just the music world.

The real world to me IS the world of music. I deal with music, musicians, and audiences 24/7. 365.

So this might explain the difference between my view, Terry, and the views of you and Pete.

Julian

[SOTSDO]

Sometimes, quantity has a quality all its own. (Stalin said that, in some form or another.)

Dealing exclusively with one subset of the world, musical or not, is certainly one's privilege. However, it tends to exclude everyone else, and the "musical" part of the world is a very small wedge indeed.

I have to deal with more than just musicians when pushing my brand of musical snake oil. Most folks don't appreciate music for music's sake - they instead are looking for music as an adjunct to their life, not something that makes up the be all and end all of their life, 24/7/365 (as the kids say these days).

To those folks, Kenny G is just the ticket. His music is "smooth", somewhat free-form, and eminently "listenable", without requiring excessive thought or analysis. It's entertainment, not an art form requiring insider knowledge and prior training.

Mind you, it's certainly not my cup of tea - I can listen to it, but too much at one time bores me to the extreme. But, music is a big tent, allowing room for all forms. My hot, your bebop, and Armstrong's traditional jazz all fit in just fine. And, none of them - bebop, hot, smooth jazz, traditional jazz - are right or wrong.

Finally, ask the secondary school teachers when they started getting requests to include soprano saxophone in their bands. It didn't happen in the 1960's, despite weirdos like me with a "fish horn" in hand. It happened once brother Kenny G rose to the fore. I was teaching actively then, and had to contend with the same phenomenon. (I steered them to bass clarinet instead.)

[sideC]

I'll believe the secondary schools jumping on the soprano saxophone during the reign of King Kenny. Sounds to me like another "overnight sensation" that took twenty years to happen. Lots of that in the music business, no?

Julian

[Ed Svoboda]

I think a certain distinction should be made in this argument. Kenny G was decidedly more pop and reached a large mainstream audience. Coltrane progressed as an artist and became less and less mainstream. Grover had some major hits in the pop and r&b realm and while the general public probably didn't really know it was a soprano being played . . . saxophonists did. The difference between Kenny G playing soprano and Grover playing the soprano is that Kenny G did it in the height of the music video age (not withstanding the standard arguments about style).

Sorry to say, but the general listener isn't going to be able to identify a soprano most of the time unless they see it in a video. Even then there's a large amount of people who simply don't care to pay attention.

[pete]

Like me I ... oooh. Shiny!

[SOTSDO]

Or, as the leader of a group I once played in said, "There ain't gonna be no fish horns in this band." He knew what they were, and he was a boneheaded trumpet player...

[sideC]

I'm still trying to find my soprano. It's around here somewhere......

Julian

[Gandalfe]

I'm still trying to find my soprano. It's around here somewhere......

I luv my sop for my quartet. But when I play with the A guys, I'm usually on tenor or alto. I can't imagine not being able to fine one of my sops, soprininos, or the soprillo. They are always on the desk next to my computer.

[sideC]

I luv my sop for my quartet. But when I play with the A guys, I'm usually on tenor or alto. I can't imagine not being able to fine one of my sops, soprininos, or the soprillo. They are always on the desk next to my computer.

Well....I have to admit that I know where the actual soprano is......it's the chops that I need to find.

Julian

[pete]

I don't think there's a good musician anywhere that says, "Y'know, I'm really the best possible. I have no need to get better."

[sideC]

I don't think there's a good musician anywhere that says, "Y'know, I'm really the best possible. I have no need to get better."

True, true.

Julian