All Activity

Ivan “Boogaloo” Jones “Black Whip/Snake Rhythm Rock” Beat Goes Public cd 300×293 6.05 KB 500×500 37.7 KB Both are great records. . . the second though has Rusty Bryant, always a big PLUS.

How far back do you want to go? There's a lot of dots to be connected. There will be R&B, cultural studies, record industry profiles, and oh by the way, jazz. Yours Truly, Dr. Hankly Wankerston

Long ago (late '80s-early '90s), I occasionally listened to a "Smooth Jazz" radio station, CD101.9 in NYC. Worked as background music. I got the impression that "Smooth Jazz" as a genre has been pretty much absorbed into the broader genre of "Adult Contemporary". Not sure what AC exactly is, though...seems to have overtones of background/bedroom music. I can see a book chapter or section on smooth jazz. I'd actually be interested (to a degree) in its history and development.

Yes it does.

I strongly disagree. I think the premise of this thread is an interesting, worthy topic of discussion. Plenty of books have influenced my listening -- if only by pointing out music that's worth exploring. Incidentally, this forum serves the exact same function, and making a recommendation is precisely what you've just done above. Does that qualify as "masturbation"? I don't think it does.

There's at least a week or two or more of good lessons in connecting dots from something like this: But this is about sounds (plurals) not reading words

Prompted by Chuck's post above:

All of this is (even more) academic masturbation Learning about sound just by reading about it? Seriously? That's not teaching, that's preaching. And of course, here comes the collection plate We've had harm enough already.

I would agree.

Beat me to it! Braxton was the first person I thought of when I saw the subject heading. Iirc he talks about meeting Desmond in Forces in Motion.

I think such a revival has already been bubbling for the past few years--Concord now markets some of its new jazz releases as smooth jazz. You could even go all the way back to the 2012 release of Robert Glasper's Black Radio album as a starting point.

You'll get no guff from me on that.

At the risk of getting a bunch of shit for this, I'm still going to say it... if the stuff free-blowing players like Brötzmann play is "Jazz", then why shouldn't the stuff smooth players play be labeled similarly? Because let's be honest with ourselves - Smooth Jazz is a lot closer to Jazz than a lot of the really out stuff being labeled as such. I used to think I knew what Jazz was. I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago. One of the albums that turned my head was The Bad Plus' "These Are The Vistas" with their cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". If Jazz can include covers of grunge metal, anything goes, right?

Teach people to play.

Simply, no.

Surely you remember them. Like podcasts, but in text on pages made of mashed vegetable matter. Very cumbersome.

yeah, Windham Hill is a whole 'nother story, since it was founded by the American steel string guitarist William Ackerman, who was inspired by John Fahey. The first release was given the catalog number C-1001, corresponding to the Takoma Records numbering system (he also reissued George Winston's solo piano debut, which was on Takoma, as well as then-new music by Takoma artist Robbie Basho). Windham Hill later became associated with "new age" but they really were doing something in an American folk-spiritualist tradition, musically, from the beginning.

The 80s edition of Berendt's jazz book would mention people like Kenny G... But, if you only have half a page for Ben Webster and a sentence or two for Johnny Griffin or Roland Kirk, someone like Kenny G cannot expect more than to be part of a list "further saxophone players in 1980s fusion jazz, some crossing over into what has become known as smooth jazz include Kenny G, Dave Koz,..." Acker Bilk might get a similar name check in the clarinet section... The sentence doesn't really hurt anyone and I always appreciated that Berendt tried to keep that type of open mind... If the record store stocks it, then the book should explain it... Then again, I also wouldn't mind if the sentence was missing.

A book?

Thanks