All Activity

It's a funny umbrella genre. I'm not sure that the above artists are strictly smooth jazz in the way that Winelight or Kenny G are. More pop fusion, perhaps? Save for Botti who is more easy listening, maybe.

Exactly. There's good and bad smooth jazz -- just like every other sub-genre.

I think that I have mentioned before, but I wouldn't be at all surprised is Smooth Jazz becomes an area of interest at some point in the near future. It is a genre that is uncool at least partly due to association with the Gorlitz machine. We've all watched as soul jazz and 70s spiritual jazz emerged from the ashes to become extremely hip. What form such a revival would take is unknown to me, partly because I think Smooth Jazz is a bit of an umbrella genre and also because I'm definitely of the Gorlitz-scarred generation. I suspect that the music is much better handled as singles than albums (despite being an album led genre) and some enterprising Brooklyn record label will put together a good comp at some point.

Braxton has stated Desmond was an early influence, though he moved on from (or greatly expanded upon) that page in a lot of ways. When I interviewed him, he still spoke lovingly of Desmond.

Soul jazz is DEFINITELY in my book! Like Ellington, it's another case of overlapping Venn diagrams of commerce and art.

there's degrees of commercialism, of course... I'd rather listen to Winelight than Kenny G, and even Pharoah Sanders and Byard Lancaster could get that "keen" over a disco beat. OTOH, I might throw in some of Bob James' "Explosions" in a free jazz segment of the course. I think one could include smooth jazz but there's a way to do it and not include utter schlock.

But if that's the case, are we not including soul jazz, however you define it? I think most of us in this forum would want the various subaltern forms of 1960s jazz included. I certainly would.

Then smooth jazz or pop-jazz or whatever you'd like to call it should be included in the book/course, IMO.

This is a fairly generous course/book. It has a chapter or lecture on soul jazz, cool and west coast jazz, fusion, etc. It's not a Ken Burns thing that is very narrowly defined.

A book that aims to examine 20th Century American Literature is likely to focus on "literary" authors like Hemingway, Faulkner, Roth, and Morrison. And -- unless the aim is to examine "popular fiction" -- it's unlikely that the book will focus on Michael Crichton and John Grisham, even though these authors probably sold more books. So, I can see how there would be a similar distinction in the jazz world -- between music that's more commercial as opposed to music that's more artistic. Of course, this is all a relative thing and subject to change over time. (For many years, many people in the musical critical establishment didn't consider ANY jazz to be artistic!) So the definition of "artistic" is always a moving target. Furthermore, sometimes the commercial and the artistic are an overlapping Venn diagram. (See Ellington, Edward K.) Ultimately, I think what should be included in our theoretical book really depends on the author's intentions. What is the scope of their examination? Is it all jazz -- including the "pop" forms? Or is it limited to the stuff that's (relatively) more "artistic"? My 2 cents.

depends on what else is in the course. I think if I were teaching a course on the music, there might be more interesting and creative commercial jazz artists to spotlight. Even among the contemporary scene, I'd hold up James Brandon Lewis & The Messthetics, Vijay Iyer/Arooj Aftab, the late jaimie branch, and Natural Information Society as those who have crossed over a bit.

Really I am just interested in your views. The likes of Dave Koz, Chris Botti, latter day Bob James or David Benoit are central to what a large part of the listening public has liked about jazz for decades. Commercial and popular easy jazz; some good tunes, emotional when needed, yearly Christmas releases, good for driving to, etc. This stuff is and remains very popular. It is not really the kind of thing that the forum members enjoy, though. I'm interested to know whether the members of this forum think these artists and their ilk should be held out as important jazz artists that kids and uninformed first time listeners should be encouraged to go and track down? Should they get a chapter in a notional new version of Ted Gioia's book, or an episode in the even more notional enlarged Ken Burns documentary? Sorry. Idle Monday morning thought.

Namyslowski: Lola (CD)

This type of salsa was not my favourite, but I always respected his enormous contribution to the music. R.I.P.

I tried Mint a few years ago. As I understand it, Mint is a graphics overlay onto Ubuntu that gives it a "Windows" look & feel. I used it on one of laptops and liked it. I was going to install it on several more machines but then an update happened and that Mint laptop stopped working. I switched it back to Ubuntu and I haven't tried it again since. I might try it again just to see if they've fixed that bug. The main reason I use Ubuntu/Linux is because I used to get old laptops from various corporate places and these corporations deleted the Windows operating system, so I needed something. Additionally, these older laptops run super fast with Ubuntu.

For the past few days I've been working my way through The Complete Vee Jay Lee Morgan-Wayne Shorter Sessions. I had all of these LP's back in the day, but this set includes a massive number of alternate takes - more quality music to absorb and enjoy!

ICYMI. "Alone Togerher" from Quiet Kenny serves as the soundtrack for the opening of last night's final episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO). Spoilers and confirmation here. https://www.tvline.com/2106429/a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-season-1-finale-recap-episode-6-the-morrow/

I hadn't thought about Don for a while, but I'm very saddened to hear that he has passed. His contributions to the music we love are multi-dimensional, and his name has always been hovering around the top of my list of people in the jazz community for whom I have nothing but admiration. R.I.P., Don.

Grew up with this. RIP

Nancy Wilson Speaking with Dexter Gordon photographed by Ted Williams during a Count Basie party at the Sutherland Hotel in Chicago, IL, November 8, 1961.

Second time listening to disc V of this excellent box set. “Classic V-Disc Big Band Jazz Sessions” Mosaic Records 10 disc set. Harry James and Basie sides.

Dave Holland Quintet “Not for Nothing’” ECM cd This quintet was really something. Double Bass – Dave Holland Drums – Billy Kilson Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone – Chris Potter Trombone, Cowbell – Robin Eubanks Vibraphone, Marimba – Steve Nelson Recorded December 10-12, 1998 Avatar Studios, New York

We got a little bit of snow overriight, enough that the bare trees will be wearing white coats and the beauty will be back with the dawn. I decided to start off with the second disc of this 2 cd set, which I have not yet played though I have spun the first disc three times! Charles Tolliver Music Inc. “At the Captain’s Cabin” Reel to Real