My brother just sent me this article written by Peter Keepnews in 1979.
(son of Jazz producer/writer Orrin Keepnews)

An easy/lazy way for me to respond to paligap's Would You sign With a Major? thread.

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Why Big Record Companies Let Jazz Down

For two years, I was one of a handful of people in the record business with a job title that had the word "jazz" in it. I was employed by the one major record company generally acknowledged to have an enlightened attitude toward the music, the major record company with by far the largest and broadest roster of jazz artists in the business. I was in the vanguard of a corporate-level movement to bring the music we love to the broadest possible audience—or so I thought when I took the job.

When I gave up being a newspaper reporter and freelance music critic in September 1977 to become the jazz publicist for CBS Records, I was not so naive as to think that anything CBS did, with or without me, was going to result in significant numbers of jazz musicians bulleting to the top of the pop charts. I knew that there was a limit to how much success any record company could achieve with serious, undiluted jazz; I had the benefit of both my own observations and what I had learned from my father (a veteran of more than two decades in the business and, as vice-president of jazz A&R for Fantasy Records, one of the few other people with that word in his job title) to tell me that. But I did believe that if a company with the power and resources of CBS chose to give good jazz records a good, hard push, doors in the marketplace could be opened for the music that had never been opened before. And I genuinely believed that CBS had made that choice.

There are some people who will still argue that CBS did make that choice and continues to be sincerely committed to jazz, but after having spent two years there I am not one of them. It's clearly true that for several years CBS has been putting out more jazz records, both the overtly commercial kind that most people call "fusion" and the simpler, more serious kind that many people call "straight-ahead," than any other major record company. But there is, as I learned rather quickly, a substantial difference between putting records out and selling them. And to simply record and release jazz records does not necessarily represent a sincere commitment to anything but, in this particular case, the personal tastes of the president of the record company—which is commendable but not enough.

The record industry, especially on the level of the six or seven multinational conglomerates that control the bulk of the business, is more complicated than most people seem to understand. A lot of jazz fans and musicians seem particularly naive about the business—on the one hand seeing it as an evil monolith bent on the destruction of jazz as we know it, and on the other hand clinging to the childlike hope that all it takes is one open-minded individual like Bruce Lundvall, the president of CBS Records, who is widely known as a committed jazz fan, to turn things around.

If I learned one thing during my tenure as a kind of in-house jazz authority at CBS, it is this: There is very little that one person, even if he's the president, can accomplish in an organization that size without the support of his subordinates and the rank and file. In the case of a major record company, the absolute key to the success of any record is the field force—the sales, merchandising and promotion people (in the record business, the word "promotion" specifically refers to getting records played on the radio) who work out of local and regional branch offices in key areas of the country. The field staff is the lifeblood of any large record company (the smaller labels rely on independent distributors and promotion people to do the same things). And their job is not to help spread the word about jazz, or to aid in the preservation of good art. Their job is to get hit records.

It hasn't always been that way in the business, but this attitude, a direct outgrowth of the record boom of the past decade, would appear to be here to stay. The precipitous drop in record sales in 1979 may in the long run change this attitude, but it seems more likely to solidify it. The record business may well be getting more and more like the movie business, turning out increasingly less product and relying almost exclusively on the big-sales blockbusters to get by. Right now, there is a lot of product, but the prevailing attitude is that anything that doesn't look like at least a potential million-seller gets extremely short shrift.

Why, then, do the majors put out any jazz records at all? Well, as you may have noticed, a lot of the majors don't. Many of those that do are releasing records that can only be called "jazz" if one stretches the definition of that word virtually to the breaking point (as the industry at large has done). They are very slickly produced, very tightly arranged, with little or no improvisation and only the slightest suggestion of what most jazz listeners would consider a jazz spirit or feeling. They cost a lot of money to make, and some of them—although by no means most of them—make a lot of money.

Among the major labels that do put out jazz, CBS (and specifically Columbia, as distinct from Epic and the host of small associated labels that are also part of CBS) is the only one that has been recording it in any consistent quantity over the last several years. There are a variety of reasons: a desire to maintain Columbia's long-standing reputation as a truly "full-line" label (Columbia also continues to release classical albums, Broadway cast albums, and other culturally important but marginally profitable product); Lundvall's genuine love of the music, and the idea, which gained currency in the early and middle '70s, that there is, in fact, a way to get at least certain kinds of jazz albums to sell in quantity. It was a Columbia album. Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew," that probably first planted the idea in some industry minds that a jazz artist could be "serious" and "commercial" at the same time. Released in 1970, it eventually sold over half a million copies. The success of Freddie Hubbard, George Benson and others at the small CTI Records about the same time gave further impetus to the idea, and other record companies began to cautiously catch on.

Because there was some suspicion that the word "jazz" might have an inhibiting or negative effect on the average consumer—and because there were elements on these records that couldn't be categorized as jazz—there was, and remains, a certain indecisiveness about what to call this music. "Fusion" has become one accepted alternative, although the equally vague "progressive" is also currently in fashion. (Are we to assume that other forms of music are "regressive?")

A few years ago, Columbia had unprecedented sales success all at once with albums by Weather Report, Eric Gale, Ramsey Lewis, Al DiMeola and Maynard Ferguson. It was the success of these artists as much as anything else that enabled Lundvall to embark on an ambitious program of signing jazz artists—both the regular kind and the "progressive" kind—without looking like an overly self-indulgent jazz fan. Some other companies, looking to CBS as a model, decided to make some signings of their own. Thus, with considerable fanfare, Warner Bros. announced the creation of a "jazz and progressive music" department, the efforts of which included not just signing artists who might deliver hit records but releasing a limited-edition boxed set of Charlie Parker's classic Dial recordings. Elektra unveiled a "jazz/ fusion" label. (Significantly, both companies recently dropped the "jazz" from the departments' names.) Similar noises were heard from other corners of the jazz world.

At CBS, a "jazz/progressive marketing" unit, under the directorship of an aggressive young record-business veteran named Vernon Slaughter, was instituted. Dr. George Butler, who had brought mass-market success to the Blue Note label, was hired as Columbia's vice president of jazz/progressive A&R. Dexter Gordon was signed, to the accompaniment of much hoopla. Similar signings followed, to the accompaniment of less hoopla but much hope within the bosoms of the nation's jazz fans—Woody Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, the Heath Brothers, Cedar Walton, Arthur Blythe.

Other signings at the same time—Lonnie Liston Smith, Billy Cobham, Tom Scott, Bob James (who got a whole label of his own, Tappan Zee)—were obviously motivated more by commercial than artistic considerations. Some of the more narrow-minded members of the jazz community were bothered, but I wasn't; I saw the potential commercial success of these artists as a kind of wedge to help open that marketplace door to the artists who were making less immediately accessible records.

This was the situation when I joined CBS as the so-called manager of jazz/progressive publicity, charged with the task of securing as much press coverage as possible for the company's burgeoning jazz roster. It didn't take me long to discover that Lundvall's signing of Dexter Gordon had been barely tolerated by many key people in the company, and that his subsequent jazz signings were provoking a definite backlash. The reason was simple: There was a deep-seated belief that, with very rare exception, jazz records, no matter how ostensibly "commercial," could not sell.

To an extent, that belief amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy—if you don't work a jazz album, it definitely won't sell. And while no amount of high-pressure salesmanship is ever likely to get Dexter Gordon a gold album—at least not until there is a much more fundamental change in the fiber of our culture than the record industry alone could ever bring about—a well-planned marketing campaign that precisely targeted Gordon's audience and found the most effective ways of reaching them could conceivably jack up his album sales from their current level (roughly 35,000 per album, not bad for bebop) to as high as 80-or 90,000. The trouble is that in the record business, even in these recessionary times, an album that sells 90,000 copies is not considered a success in corporate terms even if it turns a comfortable profit. And the amount of money, not to mention time and thought, that would be required to get results like that would make the small amount of profit from a 90,000-seller look even less desirable—and even conceivably wipe out the profit margin entirely. Therefore, the reasoning goes, why knock yourself out pushing Dexter Gordon?

But, some readers might be asking, didn't Columbia in fact give Dexter Gordon a major push? The answer is yes and no. It certainly looked like a major push, especially in New York, where there were not only big advertisements but lengthy articles throughout the daily and alternative press at the time of his first Columbia LP, "Homecoming." Personally, I interviewed Gordon for the New York Post, and I remember being impressed by the elaborate press kit I received from CBS when "Homecoming" was released. As a matter of fact, that was one of the factors that persuaded me to leave the Post when CBS offered me the publicity job: I took it to be a sign that the company really was putting its money where its mouth was as far as Dexter Gordon (and, presumably, the rest of its jazz roster) was concerned.

But what did this push really amount to? The advertising campaign and the press kit cost a lot of money, but required no follow-through. The press blitz was partly the result of diligent work by one CBS publicist and by Gordon's manager, but I think it was primarily the spontaneous result of a lot of jazz writers wanting to write about Dexter Gordon, who after all was not only a great musician and a colorful personality but, as an expatriate returning home in triumph, very good copy. I know that I went out of my way to persuade my editor at the Post to let me interview Gordon because I wanted to, not because Columbia Records was hyping him—in fact, at the time I interviewed him he hadn't yet signed with CBS.

There was a push on Dexter Gordon's behalf in that Lundvall let it be known to his staff that he took a personal interest in the success of "Homecoming." As a result the sales people leaned a little more heavily than they otherwise might have on their accounts to buy it in decent quantities, and the radio people gave it an extra effort in spite of the fact that music on "Homecoming" was not compatible with most formats of commercial radio. The album attained a much higher sales level than anything Gordon had ever recorded previously; for that matter, it was probably the best-selling bebop album of all time.

But its success was not due to a commitment on the part of CBS Records to jazz, and it was not due to a sales strategy based on the nature and quality of the music and its potential market. It was due to executive arm-twisting, and it must surely have left a bad taste in the mouth of the people in the field (and some of their superiors in the home office) to know that time that might have been spent working "big" records was diverted to Dexter Gordon because of what could easily be construed as Bruce Lundvall's whim.

Still, if Dexter Gordon had been an isolated incident, the marketing people might have accepted him somewhat graciously. But when they suddenly found themselves bombarded, with little advance warning or preparation, by a plethora of jazz albums—some of them less esoteric than others, but all of them recognizably jazz (in broad terms) as opposed to any other kind of music—it's not hard to understand the confusion and even resentment they must have felt. What were they supposed to do with all these albums?

Whether out of confusion and exasperation, or under direct orders from Lundvall's subordinates in New York, what the CBS Records field office ended up doing was, in effect, ignoring the jazz product—devoting as little attention to it as possible. In many cases, new jazz albums never even made their way into the important record stores in major cities.

One might think that the fact that CBS had a jazz/progressive marketing division would mean that such a situation was impossible, but the fact is that the division at its height consisted of only five people: a director, a head of promotion, two product managers (a product manager is a kind of in-house liaison between given artists and all the marketing wings of the company), and me. There was nobody out in the field, where the real dirty work of selling records is done, who was specifically responsible for the success (or even the availability) of the jazz product. Both Vernon Slaughter and George Butler made a number of attempts to persuade the company to hire a token jazz field force, but their suggestion was rejected by the CBS marketing brass as being too costly.

The jazz/progressive area was officially part of the company's black music marketing department, which meant in effect—although nobody ever said it in so many words—that the white people in the company tended to look on jazz as a "black" concern and not something they had to deal with. But the thrust of the black music marketing department was in the area of R&B and disco—the music that gets played on black radio. That, of course, includes little if any "pure" jazz. The average black music marketing promotion person might have had considerable success getting certain records by Herbie Hancock or Bob James (or by such artists as keyboardist Dexter Wansel and percussionist Mtume whose records are for some reason considered part of the jazz/progressive roster despite their virtual total lack of jazz content) played on the radio. But it isn't fair to ask him to do something with, say, Bobby Hutcherson or Arthur Blythe—it really isn't his job.

One result of this confusing state of affairs was that a lot of the jazz artists on CBS decided that the only way to get the company to take an interest in them was to do their damnedest to make what they considered "commercial," "black" albums. Contrary to the way it may have looked to the outside world, nobody at CBS was forcing artists like Freddie Hubbard or Hubert Laws to make slick, schlocky albums; it was a case of the artists trying to second-guess the needs of the label and, in many cases, coming up with albums that were neither artistically nor commercially very worthwhile. Other artists, like Cedar Walton and Bobby Hutcherson (and Hubbard on his excellent "Super Blue" album) tried to walk a tightrope between their artistic needs and what they saw as the need to get played on the radio. But in almost all cases, the results were the same: The company paid very little attention.

But what is ultimately most frustrating is that even if the company had put all its muscle behind every jazz or jazz-oriented album during my tenure there, there still would have been a limit to what could be accomplished as long as people insisted on trying to sell them the same way rock and R&B albums are sold. The most elaborate in-store display materials are meaningless if store owners elect not to put them up. The most extensive promotion and publicity efforts are pointless if station managers decide an artist doesn't belong on their station. All the press kits, T-shirts, ash trays, and fancy parties—like the two lavish and expensive press parties thrown for Columbia's Contemporary Masters Series—may be good ego boosters, but they don't have a damn thing to do with educating the public about jazz and finding ways to get people to listen to it.

There are certain obvious advantages for a jazz musician to being on Columbia or Warner Bros. as opposed to, say. Muse or Xanadu. His advance is likely to be higher; there is likely to be at least the appearance of a major media push when he first signs, and, in theory at least, his records will be more readily available in more stores. But a lot of jazz musicians have allowed themselves to believe that, if they sign with a major label, they will be treated with the respect they deserve and, if not necessarily made superstars, brought to a level of sales and public recognition that has long been denied them.

The essence of my job was to help these artists get greater recognition through coverage in the press. But in the long run my job was a joke, as is CBS Records' commitment to jazz. All the good press in the world won't change the fact that most of these great musicians' records are not being given the special care and attention they need to reach their proper audience, because it is not in the best interests of the people who market CBS Records to devote that kind of attention to them. This is probably truer than ever now that a financial crunch has hit the record business and panic has set in. At CBS and all major labels, it must now look like a riskier endeavor than ever to try to sell jazz records.

A lot is said about the cultural obligation of record companies to record jazz. In principle, I don't disagree that such an obligation exists. But the fact is that the record business is not just a business but a big business, and to the extent that it has a sense of cultural obligation it is an extremely small one. This is the way it is, and I have come to believe that no amount of name-calling, gnashing of teeth or appeals to the collective guilty conscience of the major companies is going to change things. To the extent that jazz albums (or any albums) of lasting cultural value get recorded on any major label, it's pretty much gravy. The hope for the future jazz lies with the small labels that are willing to put their meager resources entirely at the service of the music, and in the long run with the educational system and the long-range changes in people's attitudes that it may be able to bring about. It does not lie with the supposedly "progressive" giants of the record business.


[originally published in Jazz Magazine, Winter 1979]
http://www.jazzdiscograph...epnews.htm
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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 11/22/06 12:23pm]

That was SUCH a depressing read, Neal.

CinisterCee said:

No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you,
Frighten you or uptighten you,
Drag you down or drain you down,
Chain you down or bring you down.

Now that article was written over 25 years ago.
Substitute the term R&B (the music as we used to know it) every place you see the term Jazz.
(along with the pertinent players)

What's next?

Is it any wonder that a high-profile name closely associated with the term Jazz recently is Jamie Cullum?
And where is he from? Why do I feel like i've seen this all before?
If this cycle does repeat itself, will some of the "originals" get some credit while they're still alive to benefit from it?

The most disturbing statement in the whole article to me?:
"To the extent that jazz albums (or any albums) of lasting cultural value get recorded on any major label, it's pretty much gravy."

I should stop. It's getting late and I fear i've become a bit cranky.
Think i'll check out Q-Tip (and the lame Michael Richards apology) on Letterman.

All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
Yeah, the truth does hurt Double-C.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 11/20/06 23:18pm]

Funny you mention Q-Tip because this article shows the exact reasons why his jazz material keeps being shelved.

It's also sad because I keep hearing "schlocky" jazz around `79 and later, from artists I respect, and this article also states why.

...



and Tip didn't even make the show....

Right on Point, tA, In fact, I was suprised to see the year on the article...could've just as easily been written this morning....





...

Yes, it's sad that America's own has to go overseas to be recognized.
It makes you wonder if we Jerry Springer watching Americans are not as sophisticated/intelligent as the rest of the world.

Good article. I agree that it will take more than one person and that it's not about appealing to the "collective guilty conscience of the major companies", but one person on a Jazz mission can make change. America needs to be made Jazz aware, even if it has to be spoon fed, at first. Jazz must become the backdrop of our Hallmark moments and car commercials. For many it's the music of nostalgia. We need to be made aware that it is our music and that it is current.

I'm signing up for the cause.

Where were the labels Muse and MPS based out of? They were independent?

paligap said:

Probably got bumped due to the Michael Richards thing.


That's almost the exact thing I told my brother. Only I said yesterday.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

anon said:

Amen.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

CinisterCee said:

MPS - (German) http://www.discogs.com/la...PS+Records
Muse - There are a few variations http://www.discogs.com/la...start=3400

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Jazz these days is a by-word for smooth jazz, let's face it.

I like Jamie Cullum but...I caught him doing a jazz night jam in London a year ago, and he was meant to back various singers coming up with charts. He was pretty hopeless at accompanying them...

I have to admit, I REALLY like "Fusion" Jazz from the 70s, even though it seems to have watered down the genre.

CinisterCee said:

I don't think it was the fusion per se... a lot of those albums were(and are) excellent IMO...but it did become kinda obvious when some jazz artists started doing some disco-fied music they didn't even really like, because they thought it would sell. But that's different from other jazz artists who genuinely liked to blend and mix different sounds, genres and influences.

I think "Fusion"---well, the way they used the label ...could be a little misleading anyway... that came to stand for a pretty wide swath of electric Jazz.... everything from Miles Davis's Bitches Brew swamp, and the Polyrythmic Weather Report, to the massive, blinding speed fury of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, to Herbie Hancock's Sly -influenced Jazz/Funk, the progressive Rock of Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow, Wired, and There and Back, to Roy Ayers' Soul-Jazz, Bob James's Pop-Jazz, to some Herbie Mann dance stuff, to Dave Sanborn's instrumental R&B grooves...the urban NY funk of Jamaica Queens kats like Marcus Miller, Tom Browne, Lenny White, Don Blackman, and Bernard Wright.... but then, unfortunately, came stuff like Kenny G.....



...
[Edited 11/21/06 15:43pm]

Mong said:

That's part of the shame.
Even the term Jazz has been co-opted to stand for something it really shouldn't.
That music (snooze-jazz) should be called what it is...Easy Listening.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

paligap said:

I was extremely tempted to repost the Pat Metheny declaration.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

I think the term Jazz has become ambigious in recent times. In the Uk for instance there was a Jazz radio station, which started initially has predominately real, Jazz station; Miles Davis, Coltrain, Charlie Parker, Dizzy etc Then they changed the title of the Radio station to "Smooth Jazz" because they started to introduced more and more what I could only call Smooth Soul, i.e "I can't Help it" and "Human Nature" by MJ and songs by Earth Wind and Fire, etc. Having said all that, it also introduced to me the music of Terry Callier, so it wasn't all that bad.

However, in the end it got rid of the Jazz label and it now calls it's self just "Smooth" Radio, because it basically just plays "Easy Listening".
[Edited 11/22/06 9:29am]

theAudience said:

Well, Hell, Why Not??

Actually, although many have seen the original comments by now, not many saw Pat's follow up, which was just as articulate, hilarious and on point, IMO!! so yup, I'm reposting the original, along with the follow -up:





Pat Metheny on Kenny G(originally from Pat's website, then Jazztimes.com)

Initial 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 major 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 key 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, played 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 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 insignificant 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. (its 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. gs 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."



Follow Up Comments on Kenny G

By Pat Metheny

(June 10, 2000) A few days ago, I wrote a response on this web site (the pmgln) to questions that had come in regarding an offhand comment that I made about musician Kenny g that became a mildly notorious net-disseminated video/soundbyte (at least among the folks that posted on the topic on the site). my "explanation" was intended for the 100 or so people who contributed to and followed the thread in question on our web site and kept sending in questions to the "q and a" section of the site about it. of course, I overlooked the possibility that someone would copy THAT response and post IT on what now seems to be a bunch of other sites and newsgroups around the web, where of course, rightly, many folks cannot understand what the big fuss is all about, because like the initial comment , the context was missing (or maybe it's just because of the probably also justified, "who cares?/what is the problem?! it's only KENNY G!!" - factor ). whatever.

But the response has been interesting. my mail box is flooded with a bunch of "you go, pat!" type missives from the (seemingly legions of) g-bashers worldwide and a lesser number but equally impassioned folks expressing dismay that i would be so low as to use my "bully pulpit" (!!) to "humiliate" the hapless Mr. G or that I was "way over the top" and "unprofessional" in my "fierce defense" of the standards that are set and accepted within the world of the music that I love and work in. there are even the predictable variations from the archetypically sanctimonious jazz-purist-types who of course must question "how can Pat Metheny, of all people, presume to defend louis Armstrong against Kenny G?" - that's one I should have seen coming up 6th avenue, had I been in new York at the time! wait a minute, I was!

Among my favorites of all of these is this from robboer; "..... (This) leads me to wonder at the level of furious and terribly angry horrible invective that has come from (Pat and) our fellow listeners (towards Kenny g) .... There have been whole lists and topics devoted to the shrill and angry denouncement of Mr. Gorelick and his smooth ilk. I have nightmares of these gentle folk, led by their true God Pat, rising up to find poor Kenny and drag him from his bed, brandishing his vapid CDs, and crucifying him for his sacrilegious shallow, mollusk like, and repetitive horn playing and defilement of the holy Louie."

And then I thought, yeah, rob!!! that sounds about right - let's go DO that!!! no, seriously; to the people who seem to care one way or the other about this (which appears to have grown from the initial 26 to a fairly hefty 87 and counting); I thought I would respond to a few of the questions that people had sent in to our board since I hadn't done it in a while, and that one (the "g" question) came up on the list first. I quickly tossed off a response thinking that there were a few funny (and yes, sincere) things in there that the aforementioned 26 people who read that board would get a kick out of (no, folks, I won't be hitting anyone in the head with my guitar, despite the fact that "El Kabong" WAS probably my first major guitar influence as a kid) and thought that it would it least put the little sound byte that had been floating around of me saying basically, "Kenny g sucks" (I wonder if bevis got letters from the same folks as me?) in some kind of context for the folks who kept writing me to insist that I "explain" it. (again, I have to think, what needs explaining?? it's KENNY G!!) so, let me just add this for the folks who question the wisdom of actually "going public" with such a "harsh" view : IT'S KENNY G!!.

No, I don't really presume in any way whatsoever that my little 2 cents on the G-man and his contributions to the demise of American culture are going to make even one iota of difference or have any real significance, nor do I expect it to, to either G himself or the legions of fans that actually dig hearing him play - and god bless all of em. (nor, for that matter, will the other tetragazzillionbytes of bandwidth that have been taken up in discussion about him, me, Wynton Marsalis or anyone else in this or other forums), peoples words and opinions about music, mine included ("stature" be damned), especially when jotted down, are largely for the pleasure of the language, they mostly have less to do with the music in question than the cultural point of view that they are offered in and usually intrinsically designed to illuminate/castigate/defend/whatever - but about the best you can say about those words is they are superfluous in relation to the actual sounds in question when one is actually listening.

Like any fan of music, I've got my opinions, too - and from this episode I guess I should think twice about saying em out loud.** but, for what it's worth, I can safely say that I personally have never read anything, good or bad, from anyone anywhere that has had any impact whatsoever on the actual musical issues that involve my most every waking minute. dare I say, somewhat sadly in this case, that the same is probably true with the G-man (and his audience, let's not let the XX-million people who actually bought the record off the hook) as well.

So, anyway, the real job for me and other musicians out there that are trying to find the good notes, in fact, has nothing to do with talking, or with opinions; the real challenge is to try to make music that is the antidote to the disease, a symptom of which *might* be under discussion here. I do passionately believe that there is the possibility to make music that renders these kinds of discussions, and even the kind of music in discussion here, moot. like for instance, the reality of the music that Louis Armstrong gave the world at his best.

One last thing - it is a little alarming to me to see that my little rant on this topic seems to have generated such a relatively huge response. it makes me feel that in this day and age, even within the "jazz community", controversy, especially PUBLIC controversy, has the chance to "win" over musical substance, even in terms of what gets discussed - people seem to absolutely love it. I have seen (and have never dug) at least one of my peers banking on this for a few years now with his public pronouncements and I have to admit that I underestimated the impact/interest that a "negative" public comment even on an obscure corner of the web can manifest. I guess I wish that the actual playing and writing could generate the kind of discussion that what was essentially an off the cuff cultural/political blurb into cyberspace seemed to. again, it seems more practicing and better music needs to be involved - gonna continue to work hard on that (finding the good notes) as a goal.

But then again, shouldn't someone say something about this? isn't it our responsibility? or is it actually just cool, Kenny g and a dead Louis in the year of his 100th birthday? even if it was his sappiest track ever, there is still so much valuable and rare information in the way he sang even THAT tune - like with everything he sang or played - that is the SHIT - and somehow juxtaposed with G, I don't know, there is something practically obscene about it to me, obviously.

As far as I know (and it is very possible that I missed something) the major jazz and music mags (not to mention time or newsweek or something) have not really had too much to say about the subject other than the usual Kenny g bashing and maybe a little eye-rolling, nor do I know of any other prominent musicians who have spoken out on the subject. maybe as someone put it, dissing Kenny G is like "shooting fish in a barrel, he would have to be the world's easiest musical target" but, isn't this different? or are we all so numb to all the crap out there and so worn down by the apathy of the general public to any higher musical intentions that it really doesn't matter to anyone anymore, something like this?"







...
[Edited 11/22/06 8:54am]

whatsgoingon said:

Good to know that we Americans aren't alone in our ignorance and lack of sophistication.

It's also sad.

***UPDATE***

This is from one of the emails my brother sent me during our discussion of this topic.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

You probably know this, but Peter Keepnews’ father, to whom he refers in the article, was also founder of Riverside records. Orrin Keepnews has an interesting article, which I will try to locate, on the problem of the jazz record review.

I know many jazz collectors, or at least some, who refuse to collect or purchase titles released by the majors, even if that means excluding recordings like Kind of Blue from their collections. Their view is that the majors are helping to destroy jazz, by one means or another, and to purchase their products is to assist their efforts. Money that might be spent on titles by the majors should be directed to the usually struggling independent labels that respect the music. Some are fiercely dedicated to one particular independent label, which they feel best exemplifies what jazz is, or should be. In other cases titles from the chosen label are centerpieces of a relatively diverse collection. I have witnessed more than one intense but friendly argument about which is the best label. The contenders for the title are usually Blue Note, Contemporary, Prestige, Riverside and Verve, since the era of great lps begins after the period of Parker, Gillespie, Hines, etc. Impulse Records appeared later than the others and is usually not included in the debate.


The case for..

Prestige: the best hard bop musicians such as Coltrane, Davis, Rollins and the best soul jazz organists (except Smith) and guitarists. Label promoted jam session atmosphere that encouraged musicians to stretch out, as in live performance.

Contemporary: the best sounding recordings. Most jazz collectors are also audiophiles. Collectors cite East coast bias; consider West Coast musicians unfairly underrated. West Coast jazz combines best aspects of modern and pre-bop music.

Riverside: featured the most thoughtful and lyrical modern musicians in their prime such as Montgomery, Adderley, Evans and especially Monk. More diverse catalogue than any of the other independents; offered alternatives to hard bop and soul jazz.

Verve: for collectors who do not like bop-oriented jazz. Though many boppers have recorded for more than one independent label, none of the other independents can claim titles by Fitzgerald, Eldridge, Hawkins, Young, Holiday, Wilson or Hodges.

Blue Note: perhaps not best at anything (unless one accepts the mystique of Rudy Van Gelder), but no other label grades no less than A- in every category. Virtues include high quality recordings, paid rehearsal, challenging material, artistic covers.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I love this guy.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Contender for THREAD OF THE YEAR!

paligap said:

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

NuPwr319 said:

The check is in the mail.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431