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Oh it was my first time listening to it (streaming, Deezer)! I don't know Rasmussen at all 😅 It was recently issued (I picked up on it right here:

Oh yeah. Five stars aren't enough for that record!

Hadn’t played my favorite record on my new deck yet

A bit off topic but I reckon that a person could make a cracking double CD of post-CTI Bob James. He really does have some excellent tunes, albeit on some pretty crappy records, some times.

yes, there was a list published and I was trying to find it. EDIT: the site it was on is gone but here's the list via discogs: https://www.discogs.com/lists/Smooth-Jazz-Underground/373593?srsltid=AfmBOoqRsc7RuuBONGFaS0nj4voHYNipEiZeUw_0BiudtJ90Iew5olli

"Bedroom" / underground smooth jazz... There was a list that got published somewhere a while back. Maybe you posted it? Someone who knows his or her stuff did.

okay, right. Was "fuzak" a term for this stuff? I feel like I remember that being used in the 90s.

What I mean is that the likes of the Rippingtons maybe played on a different radio station, or something.

see, I always associate Grusin with smooth jazz but maybe he isn't. Obviously both Grover Washington and Mr. Gorelick can play! cdbaby/lofi cassette smooth jazz has some interest for weirdo collectors. It's not my thing, really, but I can understand the appeal.

Genres are tricky. They're useful tools for understanding. But always limited.

Funny to use Jokerman font on a jazz album cover. Not one you'll see in the coffee table books any time soon...

It’s not that expensive but it took me a while before I obtained a copy trough Discogs

Oh yeah. I forgot Braxton. What are these records? I can't find this one on Discogs. Is it part of a series? And if so do you recommend them?

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. I wasn't really meaning to ask though about whether members like smooth jazz or commercial fusion (I assume generally not that much) but really whether members regard this as a legitimate genre of jazz that is worth bringing to the attention of students. Even if the course is just a circle around the album cover for Winelight and another circle saying "Everything Else".

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.