This Band Rips

April 20, 2008 1:35 PM

Smooth Jazz, also sometimes referred to as new adult contemporary music or instrumental pop, is generally described as a genre that utilizes instruments and improvisation traditionally associated with jazz and stylistic influences drawn from mostly R&B, but also funk and pop. Since the late 1980s and into the 1990s, it has become successful as a radio format. [source wikipedia]

The average smooth jazz track is on the "downtempo" (most widely played tracks are in the 90–105 BPM range) side, layering a lead, melody-playing instrument (saxophones, guitars, piano) over a backdrop that tends to consist of programmed rhythms and various pads and/or samples. Although many people and record companies group smooth and contemporary jazz together, both genres are slightly different in the way they serve the listener. Smooth jazz is generally considered background music, whereas "serious" jazz is seen as demanding the listener's undivided attention.

Following are some of my favorite Smooth Jazz bands and tracks. Enjoy.

Tourist in Paradise -- The Rippingtons
Together Tonight -- Brian Culbertson
Rollin -- Fourplay
Notorious -- Boney James and Rick Braun
Do You Miss Me -- Mindi Abair
Midnight in Manhattan -- Peter White and Dave Koz
Return of the Eagle -- Craig Chaquico
It's All Good -- Brian Simpson

Well, that's enough from me. Do you have any of your own favorites you'd like to add?

posted by netbros (251 comments total)

elevator going down.
posted by auralcoral at 1:49 PM on April 20

*presses the button that ends the world*
posted by selfnoise at 1:52 PM on April 20 [4 favorites]

What, no Kenny G?
posted by grouse at 1:53 PM on April 20

I wasn't aware that this sort of music actually had an audience, or distinct bands, or a "scene"... but judging from the comments on Youtube fans are actively anticipating seeing these acts in concert. Huh.

I thought that it just sort of existed, drawn from some ancient library of stoned session musician jamming and licensed to customer service call centers and the sort of malls that have faux-marble accents.

Very brave of you to post this, netbros.
posted by Spacelegoman at 1:53 PM on April 20 [6 favorites]

Musical tastes and likes evolve as we age. When I was in my twenties in the 1970s, my favorites were bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Todd Rundgren, The Who. When I was in my thirties I began migrating toward the crossover jazz scene with such favorites as Return to Forever and Spyro Gyra. Looking for something a little more mellow for background music as I've entered my fifties, Smooth Jazz fits the bill. I still have a lot of rock and roll in my collection, but what would we do without menus?

I'm not embarrassed to admit I like this music.
posted by netbros at 2:02 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Smooth jazz is not jazz.
posted by caddis at 2:03 PM on April 20 [3 favorites]

Actually, it has a far bigger market than "serious" jazz, many times bigger in fact.

One of the more problematic facts you will not hear mentioned much among jazz scholars is that smooth jazz has a much higher proportion of African American listeners (and purchasers) than "serious" jazz does, though the actual numbers are elusive.

Just a factor to consider if this thread is going to enter the shark infested waters of the authenticity debate around this music. I'm not taking sides, since I hate all music.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:05 PM on April 20 [3 favorites]

I don't have a problem with the authenticity, I have a problem with the saxophone playing. There's a certain "smooth jazz" way of playing that instrument that instantly triggers negative associations with me, most of which are, yes, call-center related.
posted by Spacelegoman at 2:10 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

I hate all music.

I really hope you're not serious. If you are, please explain yourself.
posted by auralcoral at 2:12 PM on April 20

fourcheesemac, it's sort of like pop music, Britany Spears and all, versus indy rock.
posted by caddis at 2:13 PM on April 20

insipidariffic!
posted by stenseng at 2:15 PM on April 20

I find the "background music" argument weird, by the way. I listen to non-smooth jazz as background music and I don't have to devote every moment to listening to it. There's plenty of quiet, lovely jazz that fits this purpose (Bill Evans, for instance). This music, on the other hand, is like a splinter in my mind, driving me mad.

I'm with Spacelegoman. This reminds me of the music they play on the ground floor of my office building, in the cafe that smells like fried ass every morning. Bad, bad associations make it hard to like this music, even if I was predisposed to it.
posted by selfnoise at 2:16 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Whenever I use the term "Smooth Jazz" to someone who's never heard of it before, rather than describe it I just say "weather Channel Music." They get it instantly.
posted by sourwookie at 2:21 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

Sorry, I want to like this music, I really do, but it drives me insane. I keep waiting for the vocals, but they almost never come. I do like instrumental music -- Joe Hisaishi is amazing -- but there is something about this particular sound that always feels like it is missing something.
posted by Chasuk at 2:31 PM on April 20

Hating on smooth jazz is like laughing at the retarded kid.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:33 PM on April 20 [13 favorites]

A timely post, since last month there were several articles about how Smooth Jazz is a dying radio format.

Sourwookie, you be pleased to know the above article also namechecks The Weather Channel.
posted by pfafflin at 2:34 PM on April 20

This is the music they play in Hell.
posted by Evstar at 2:38 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

...but there is something about this particular sound that always feels like it is missing something.

That would be soul.

Smooth jazz is to music what Hallmark greeting cards are to poetry. Inoffensive pablum targeted broadly to the fat part of the demographic bell curve for which the most complimentary adjective that could possibly be applied is "nice."

I sure don't like being offended by my elevators. YellowJackets4Life.
posted by peacecorn at 2:39 PM on April 20 [4 favorites]

Last night I had hot fast sex standing up in the open air with a former Alvin Ailey and Paul Taylor dancer on a rooftop just over a terrace from which the party she was hosting was clearly audible, and 40 stories over an astonishing view up the Hudson River and Manhattan's west side as the sky cleared and the full moon burned through the clouds like a summer sun through a morning haze, and the cool spring air tickled my ass hairs like a gentle and encouragingly affectionate reach-back from Nature, or Nature's God. I slept in till the afternoon, my sweet old cat by my head, when the same good woman came to me in my spacious lower Fifth Avenue apartment and we made languorous love for so long we almost missed brunch at my favorite café on University, where we got in the last order for melon and berry salad, an egg-and-croissant sandwich, iced lattes, and raspberry lemonade, and she invited me to a secret preview screening of Iron Man. A perfect welcome back from a week in Vegas with my best and oldest friends, where our venture-backed mobile-content start-up's booth was well-attended at the broadcasters' convention.

But now I have seen the Rippingtons perform "Tourist in Paradise" - if "perform" is the word I'm looking for - and I have lost my joie de vivre. Flagged as "buzzkill".
posted by Now I'm Prune Tracy! at 2:59 PM on April 20 [24 favorites]

This is the music that you hear right before the doctor tells you what's wrong with you.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 3:12 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

When I think of Smooth Jazz, I think George Benson.
posted by horsemuth at 3:19 PM on April 20

It's all relative - okay, smooth jazz sucks. But it's just a silly-straw suck compared to the hard vacuum of space known as hip-hop.
posted by gregor-e at 3:20 PM on April 20

"Smooth Jazz" to me has always been synonymous with that boring, slow station played in offices and waiting rooms.

New York's old "smooth jazz" station converted to a rock format recently.
posted by cmgonzalez at 3:21 PM on April 20

It's all relative - okay, smooth jazz sucks. But it's just a silly-straw suck compared to the hard vacuum of space known as hip-hop.

Next, can we talk about how the country music listened to by people who live in the country isn't real country music? Might as well cover all the bases.
posted by Bookhouse at 3:24 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

More than any other music, death metal included, smooth jazz makes me want to kill things. So there must be something to those nauseating sax riffs.
posted by obvious at 3:27 PM on April 20

I really hope you're not serious. If you are, please explain yourself.

Why? I'm not allowed to hate music? /grin

It depends what you mean by "serious," I guess. Considering I made my living as a musician for a decade, and still make it as a professor of music (sort of, it's complicated), I suppose "hate" is a provocative word. But I find it more useful to start from a position that NO music is authentic, or more authentic than any other music, and no music is a priori "worse" just because I don't like it, than from some reverent genuflection in front of the Temple of High Art or mortification at the Temple of Low Commerce.

I actually don't think music can be good or bad; you can like it or not. Big difference.

A lot of people like Smooth Jazz; who am I to say they are wrong? It's certainly better than America's Next Top Model or an appendectomy!
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:47 PM on April 20 [3 favorites]

Your favourite band zzzzz
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:48 PM on April 20

Bookhouse, you have it exactly right -- bluegrass is for educated people; Shania Twain for the people educated people think like bluegrass, or something along those lines to a first approximation!
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:48 PM on April 20

Actually, this is kind of pleasant. I could play this in the background while I read MetaTalk. Thanks!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:52 PM on April 20

fourcheese, i agree that qualifying different genres is a vacant act. i was just appalled that anyone could hate music.
posted by auralcoral at 3:53 PM on April 20

The first time I ever heard what eventually became known as "Smooth Jazz" was John Klemmer's Touch, which must be to Kenny G what the 13th Floor Elevators were to garage psychedelia. As a sophomore in college just getting into jazz, I liked the album at the time -- the mellow sax, the shimmering Fender Rhodes. I downloaded a couple of tracks recently just to see what I thought of "Touch" now, after total immersion in jazz for 30 years. It's not quite the music from Hell, but it's sorta like Steely Dan without the irony.
posted by digaman at 4:00 PM on April 20

Regarding one comment above, it is interesting that (here I'm judging from one audience shot at a PBS Kenny G concert...60 seconds of it is all I can stand...unscientific as hell) smooth jazz has such a large African-American (older, femaler) than real jazz.

And, by the way, I don't think real jazz is all that challenging and demanding as a lot of people assume. Complex and nuanced it is, but so is some heavy metal (as much as I hate to admit it).
posted by kozad at 4:04 PM on April 20

it drives me insane. I keep waiting for the vocals

Here ya go.
posted by netbros at 4:10 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

But it's just a silly-straw suck compared to the hard vacuum of space known as hip-hop.

statements within threads such as this are really helping me get in touch with my inner masochist.
posted by Hat Maui at 4:24 PM on April 20

it is interesting that (here I'm judging from one audience shot at a PBS Kenny G concert...60 seconds of it is all I can stand...unscientific as hell) smooth jazz has such a large African-American (older, femaler) than real jazz.

Black people can have shallow commercial taste too. Pictures at 11.
posted by digaman at 4:28 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

I've heard that some people fall asleep instantly at the mere mention of smooth
posted by goatdog at 4:48 PM on April 20 [4 favorites]

I'm in the process of listening to all of the smooth jazz tracks in this great post of yours, in the desperate hope that I'll find at least one that I like. It's not that I hate smooth jazz, I just find it evil. Not evil like serial killer evil, or rise of the fascist state evil, but like the slow contented slide towards death when you are in second stage hypothermia and you've managed to convince yourself the struggle to survive isn't worth it anymore. Warm, fuzzy and oh so sleepy you just wait for the end, swaddled in a warm cradle of fluff.

The tough part for me is that I can't identify why I don't like smooth jazz. I like jazz, funk, some of the world music that the genres share; I can even listen to a half a minute instrumental sample, but when a whole track of smooth jazz comes along I find it harder to take than drinking a bottle of corn syrup. This upsets me, because usually if I look at almost any genre of music I can find something I love about it if I look hard enough, and looking at the audience in some of your tracks I can see they are having a good time. It's like they and you are privy to some language of downtempo contentedness that I'll never be able to hear.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:50 PM on April 20 [6 favorites]

This shit is an abomination. And yes that's opinion. But as someone who loves the music of Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, Zoot Sims, Wayne Shorter, Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O'Day, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Tete Montoliou, George Adams, Count Basie, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Art Pepper, Roland Kirk, Sun Ra, Ella Fitzgerald, Mose Allison, Cecil Taylor, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Christian, Oscar Peterson, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, Geri Allen, Don Friedman, Steve Kuhn, Ornette Coleman, Chet Baker, Amina Claudine Myers, Mary Lou Williams, Johnny Hartman, Bobby Hutcherson, Lionel Hampton, Betty Carter, Art Farmer, Kenny Barron, Stan Getz, Buddy DeFranco, Tony Scott, Don Byron, James Carter, Brad Mehldau, Tommy Flanagan, Bessie Smith, Roy Eldridge, Machito, Elvin Jones, Tito Puente, Charles Brown, Papa Jo Jones, Jaki Byard, Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, John Hicks, Yusef Lateef, Pharaoh Sanders, Shirley Horn, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Jimmy Smith, Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith, Dave Holland, Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, Claude Williamson, Gerry Mulligan, Herbie Nichols, Jimmy Heath, Steve Turre, Hilton Ruiz, Albert Ayler, Harry 'Sweets' Edison, Don Ellis, George Braith, David Murray, Larry Goldings, Eric Kloss, Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, Art Blakey, Sidney Bechet, James Blood Ulmer, Barney Wilen, Lonnie Smith, Sonny Stitt, Dinah Washington, Earl Hines, Nina Simone, Paul Desmond, George Cables, Harold Land, Sonny Criss, David 'Fathead' Newman, Hank Crawford, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, or for that matter Muddy Waters, James Brown, Robert Johnson, Albert Collins, George Clinton, Freddy King, Albert King, Memphis Slim, Slim Harpo, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Hubert Sumlin, Howlin Wolf, Lonnie Mack, Duane Eddie, Link Wray, Speedy West, or the Meters...

it seems necessary to point out what a shame it is that the most of "jazz" many kids will hear is this bogus smooth jazz crap--that they will hear Kenny G but not Ben Webster--just as what a shame it is that many kids will hear Britney Spears but not true geniuses of American music like Bill Monroe, Sarah Vaughan, Patsy Cline, Jimmie Rodgers, Allen Touissant, Dr. John, Chick Webb, the Carter Family or Ruth Brown.

It seems a shame that American musical education is largely nonexistant, and that the great heritage of American music and popular song that sustained American music until recently--roots/a lot of popular music/folk music--trad jazz, swing, blues, bebop, soul jazz, funk, New Orleans music, southwest country swing, bluegrass, R&B, the 50s and 60s sounds of Memphis, Detroit, Nashville, etc--is still mostly neglected as something Americans should be taught about. The wonderful thing about so much American music from 1900 to 1970 or so is that it draws on so many intertwined traditions and sounds: it's all of a piece, and it's really arguable the greatest legacy America has ever had. Even people who should know more about rock/pop usually don't--they are not taught about Nat King Cole or Doc Watson or Little Milton or John Lee Hooker or Norman Blake or even the Seeds, Sonics, Cramps or the Bakersfield Sound. I think the history of American should be taught in AMerican schools. Because the thought of someone hearing Boney James and never hearing Roland Kirk or knowing who George Gershwin is, is just pathetic.
posted by ornate insect at 4:56 PM on April 20 [16 favorites]

This is sooooo excellent as a post.

It elevates trolling to a new level, largely by 'leveling out' the distracting highs and lows from the practice, insisting on a certain restrained, easy-to-take quality of facetious irritation in the place of the previously favored absurd meltdowns and Godwinning.

In the end, who can say which is truly more sadistic?
posted by mwhybark at 5:00 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

I call sockpuppet on the clearly brilliant Prune Tracy, btw.
posted by mwhybark at 5:01 PM on April 20

And ornate insect, brother caine, in this one instance, I say: please do feed the troll.
posted by mwhybark at 5:02 PM on April 20

It's all good - Brian Simpson. I liked the 35 seconds of music 3 min 45 seconds in, but I never would've made it that far into the song without forcing myself to listen to it.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:09 PM on April 20

It's not jazz music I dislike; it's the fans.

Please, smooth jazz haters, come and further reinforce the stereotype of jazz lovers are aggressive elitists.

My favourite jazz-related quote: I once heard a documentary about Joni Mitchell. he narrator describes how she became more sophisticated as she went along until at one point the session musicians could no longer figure out what she was doing. so, to quote, "They had to bring in Jazz Musicians". The 101st Airborne of the music world.
posted by GuyZero at 5:13 PM on April 20 [7 favorites]

One of the more problematic facts you will not hear mentioned much among jazz scholars is that smooth jazz has smooth jazz has a much higher proportion of African American listeners (and purchasers) than "serious" jazz does, though the actual numbers are elusive.

Other than the above mentioned PBS concert, what backs this up? (Moreover, given the smooth jazz has a higher proportion of any kind of listener than "serious" jazz does, surely the disparate numbers would stand to reason? And count me naive, but why is it problematic?)
posted by IndigoJones at 5:14 PM on April 20

A lot of people like Smooth Jazz; who am I to say they are wrong? It's certainly better than America's Next Top Model or an appendectomy!

You're just saying that because you've never had a really good appendectomy.
posted by juv3nal at 5:15 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

I thought this shit music got stamped out in the Hawaiian Shirts and Teva Sandals with Socks wars of '07.
posted by basicchannel at 5:16 PM on April 20

That appendectomy was smooooooth
posted by Spacelegoman at 5:22 PM on April 20

chances are i will never listen to any of these songs (on purpose at least). still, if an acquaintance asked me for smooth jazz recommendations, now i have somewhere to point them. thanks!
posted by snofoam at 5:26 PM on April 20

It seems a shame that American musical education is largely nonexistant

Agreed absolutely. When I was in elementary school and junior high in the sixties, there was always at least a classroom period per day devoted to music. If you were in the school band, even more. But it's more than just teaching notes and scales, the music history is equally important.
posted by netbros at 5:26 PM on April 20

the session musicians could no longer figure out what she was doing. so, to quote, "They had to bring in Jazz Musicians"

The session musicans very often are or were jazz musicians, or rather often dabble in jazz on the side and have a wide enough background in the idioms of American popular music to be able to pick up relatively quickly what needs to be done in a given setting. What connects Glenn Miller to Charlie Mingus, or for that matter Hoagy Carmichael and Vernon Duke and Cole Porter to Louis Jordan, Hank Williams, Bo Diddley, Johnny Cash, and rhythm and blues, is just a loose but unmistakable sense of what constitutes the American musical vernacular: it's partly a certain quality and approach to rhythm and harmony that permeates a lot American music and ties it together.

I'm the oppositie of an elitist: I'm a pluralist for something I think of as the sort of bedrock ur-blues-jazz cadence that informs so much American and blues-based music: if 20th century popular music is a tree, its roots are the blues and its trunk is something like jazz-blues; it has a very large branch in old time/bluegrass/country-western; another large branch in blues and early rock etc. W/out this tree trunk, the Stones and the Beatles, both of whom I love, are impossible, for instance.
posted by ornate insect at 5:31 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

What, no Kenny G?

I moved to Seattle in 1987, and I distinctly remember the national attention Kenny G got in the late 80's. It was often coupled with the breathless "and he's from Seattle" tag. I began to cringe when thinking that Seattle was now being associated with Kenny G rather than, you know, Hendrix.

But then Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and a bunch of others came along and Seattle began forgetting ABOUT THE NIGHTMARE OF KENNY G.

C'mon, when do we get our "grunge" link dump???
posted by Tube at 5:37 PM on April 20

Pat Metheny on Kenny G
posted by ornate insect at 5:39 PM on April 20 [9 favorites]

Smooth Jazz is like Hotel Art. I appreciate its technical adequacy and ept inoffensiveness, but it doesn't have the power of conviction or dare risk-taking. It's too safe.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:43 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

I blame Winton Marsalis and Ken Burns. They bent the public interest all out of shape, with their over-emphasis on turn-of-the-century originary stuff and not enough on the past 4 decades, which gave us all of the inter-cultural crossovers. They ossified jazz as an obscure, inaccessible niche music and utterly ignored the better stuff of the 60's to the '00's.

It's just politics, like everywhere else, but Burns should have been more aware that he was being used.

Smooth Jazz is what you get when an audience raised on Sade, Boney James and Kenny G dosn't know any better and a generation's worth of balladeers are smoking crack in LA.
posted by vhsiv at 5:45 PM on April 20

Wynton Marsalis, sorry.
posted by vhsiv at 5:46 PM on April 20

chances are i will never listen to any of these songs (on purpose at least). still, if an acquaintance asked me for smooth jazz recommendations, now i have somewhere to point them. thanks!

... and isn't that one of the points of MetaFilter. You're welcome. When I posted this I expected a lot of YourFavoriteBandSucksFilter, and I haven't been disappointed, but that's OK. It happens with every music thread. Not everyone likes the same thing. I'm not real crazy about rap (except for Snoop D O double G. Snoop is cool), or opera.

Most of the fans of Smooth Jazz (I prefer the name instrumental pop so it doesn't get confused with jazz jazz) are in the 35-65 age group, including myself. Many MeFites are not. Hell, when I was in my twenties I didn't like my father's music either. But it's pretty darn likely none of us here will be listening to the same music in 30 years that we do now. That's what happened with me.

Anyway, take what you need or want from this thread and leave the rest. When all is said and done, we're all just bozos on that bus.
posted by netbros at 5:48 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

vhshiv--The Burns doc might have been somewhat better, but I don't think it makes any sense to blame it (or even the often less than inspired "young lions" who followed the neoclassicist Marsalis in the straight-ahead jazz renaissance of the 80s/90s) on the waning of jazz. It's like blaming his Baseball documentary for the steroids use in baseball.

I think, as a music, the blues-jazz tradition has now gradually run its course.

There will still be some innovators, but even the rock era is more or less over in my opinion. When music changes as much as it did from the 1920s to the avant garde and psychedelia of the 1960s and loft scene of the 1970s, it makes no sense to expect a Shakespeare every decade: it was a great run, for jazz and all of popular music. I think music is re-grouping and morphing now, but the great trajectory of American popular music is largely dissipating. For better and worse. American culture as a whole has changed, and the change in music reflects that. It seems the post-American era (in terms of cultural ascendency, as well as obviously in economic influence) is upon us.

And that's ok too.
posted by ornate insect at 6:01 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

I adore Steely Dan, Sade and Herb Alpert, all of which are commonly played on the smooth jazz station.
posted by Jess the Mess at 6:14 PM on April 20

It's not jazz music I dislike; it's the fans.

See also: Parrotheads, Deadheads, Dave Matthews fratboy force, doo-wop revivals, white collar warriors that shout "LEMMY" or "MAIDEN!" and that record store clerk always driveling on about Yo La Tengo.
posted by hal9k at 6:19 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Other than the above mentioned PBS concert, what backs this up? (Moreover, given the smooth jazz has a higher proportion of any kind of listener than "serious" jazz does, surely the disparate numbers would stand to reason? And count me naive, but why is it problematic?)
posted by IndigoJones

1) Here's an interesting article that explores some of the demographics; there's also an excellent article by Christopher Washburne in a book he edited with Maiken Derno called *Bad Music* that discusses the market for Kenny G (which he describes as heavily African American).

2) It is a problem because of the long intertwined history of aesthetic racial essentialism in constructions of musical and cultural authenticity and value in American history; it's a complex subject, but the Washburne article referred to above lays out some of the territory.

The debate in this thread exemplifies the problem as well; we naturalize our ideologies as aesthetic preferences, and then exercise the judgment of taste as a judgment of social value -- if you want to we can take it back to Bourdieu's *Distinction.* There is no absolute scale of musical value, and I concur with GuyZero above that jazz fans are a lot more tightassed than most jazz *musicians* I know. Never forget that Charlie Parker loved country and western music very deeply.

Actually, country fans are about as impossible on this stuff.

See why it's easier to just hate all music as an opening gambit?
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:23 PM on April 20 [3 favorites]

Jess the Mess writes "I adore Steely Dan, Sade and Herb Alpert, all of which are commonly played on the smooth jazz station."

Yeah, but they also play Chuck Mangione. I like his drummer alright, but, you know ... actually, his musical pedigree is pretty amazing, but he made so much Velveeta ...

I find that as I get older my musical tastes change, but not in that sort of direction. My last roommate loved the smooth jazz station and listened to nothing else. The music was a constant backdrop. I could sort of tune it out, but it wasn't easy. I live alone now.
posted by krinklyfig at 6:29 PM on April 20

It's certainly better than America's Next Top Model or an appendectomy!

Hey, I'd rather have an a pen in back a' me than a deck in... no wait, a Model right next to me than America on top a' me... no... aww, hell. I always screw that joke up.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:35 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

fourcheesemac--it may be that "authenticity" is in anything like music or cultural activity a myth (this would be Adorno's crtitique in the "Jargon of Authenticity" against Heidegger), but then again even though it can not be quantified we do think there is something like "culture" in the world. American musical culture circa 1920 to 1970 seems to have something like an identifiable character: Bird and Bill Monroe as roughly contemporaries, share, for instance, the distinction of taking an idiom (Kansas City Swing/Jump Blues in Bird's case and country plus Appalachian old-time music in Monroe's case) and speeding up the tempos, streamlining the melodies, embellishing solos in a rococo fashion around familiar tunes (thereby creating new tunes), etc. Each brought an instrumental virtuosity and a kind of sensibility for their respective traditions that makes them similar in some regards. But then there's an even more profound link, since Monroe tells of how he heard minstrels and blues and how he attempted to get that "high lonesome" sound. Both Bird and Monroe would have been drawing from a well that includes Jimmy Rodgers, the blue yodeler and father of country, and the cowboy songs of certain popular stars like Gene Autry, etc. American music really is that melting pot we're always told about: one can hear the southwest country in the abstract expressionistic music of Ornette and bebop in the "country jazz" of Speedy West.
posted by ornate insect at 6:38 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the post, netbros.
posted by chinston at 6:43 PM on April 20

lovely thoughts, ornate insect; personally, i agree with you as far as my own tastes and interests go; i can listen to merle haggard or otis redding all day long and sometimes do.

but what we don't know when we're marinating in it is what's really going on around us or how it will seem 50 or 100 years from now. a lot of stuff we'd now judge to be the Real Thing was pop in its day. i've learned to be cautious the older i've gotten.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:00 PM on April 20

Yeah, netbros... this post, and all comments spawned by it pro and con, are all wins. I'm very glad to see this on MetaFilter, up there with the rest of them. And smooth jazz, like every other genre, has many gems in a field of rough.
posted by not_on_display at 7:06 PM on April 20

fourcheesemac--yeah it's definitely all pop; anything made in a recording studio and meant to sell records was pop. Pop just means popular music. Merel and Otis are definitely doing something like classic Americana or American Pop. And so too Dylan, Aretha, Lou Reed, etc. I guess I'm trying to describe as what I see as the Golden Era of American Pop, from about 1920 to about 1970. Its forerunners are in the swing era and it's unclear and probably unfinished end is the beginnings of arena rock or something.
posted by ornate insect at 7:07 PM on April 20

I really hope you're not serious [that you hate music]. If you are, please explain yourself.

Why? I'm not allowed to hate music? /grin

It depends what you mean by "serious," I guess. Considering I made my living as a musician for a decade, and still make it as a professor of music (sort of, it's complicated), I suppose "hate" is a provocative word. But I find it more useful to start from a position that NO music is authentic, or more authentic than any other music, and no music is a priori "worse" just because I don't like it, than from some reverent genuflection in front of the Temple of High Art or mortification at the Temple of Low Commerce.

I actually don't think music can be good or bad; you can like it or not. Big difference.

That made me want to kill myself.

It was like I asked someone if he knew the time and he gave me a lecture about Relativity.

Dude, DO YOU HATE MUSIC?

I listen to something and have a reaction. Sometimes I like what I hear; sometimes I could take it or leave it; sometimes it's mildly unpleasant; sometimes I hate it. Are you saying that you don't have gut reactions like that?

I actually don't think music can be good or bad; you can like it or not. Big difference.

Are you claiming that music (art? anything?) can't have objective aesthetic qualities -- that such a notion is absurd? If so, I agree with you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It is the case that if you take a hundred beholders and educate them in a particular way (all one hundred the same way), they will tend to find the same things appealing or unappealing. That's the closest you can get to a universal aesthetic.

It also MAY be the case that some aesthetic feelings are innate. By virtue of being human, there are certain things we necessarily like and dislike -- and that those things are the same for everyone. But, if such things exist, there's no point arguing about them, because we're already in agreement about them.
posted by grumblebee at 7:10 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

The session musicans very often are or were jazz musicians, or rather often dabble in jazz on the side and have a wide enough background...

Wow, you completely missed my point. This has nothing to do with the musicians and everything to do with the narrator of the documentary (it was a radio documentary). Regardless of the musicians the narrator made an implicit division of musicians into two groups: "regular" and "Jazz". Where Jazz musicians are capable of doing things that regular musicians can't.

It's not proof of anything but it sums up my opinions of Jazz fans pretty well: that there is an inherent belief that Jazz is somehow better than "regular" music. Jazz aficionados are, for the most part, just music bigots who like to hear the sound of themselves defending their bigotry.
posted by GuyZero at 7:36 PM on April 20

Jazz aficionados are, for the most part, just music bigots who like to hear the sound of themselves defending their bigotry.

Do you really believe this? I think it rings totally false.

I for one consider myself a jazz fan, but have gone out of my way to show in this thread how I think of jazz and the American musical tradition as inextricably linked: the Great American Songbook jazz utilized came out mostly of Tin Pan alley musicals, jazz was once America's popular music (during the big band swing era), it was dance music, and it was intimately historically bound to blues, jump blues, R&B, rock n roll, country, and the whole gamut of American popular music. The giants of jazz, like Ella and Frank Sinatra and Duke, are just really giants of American Music: no more and no less.

Maybe you've had some bad experience w/a jazz snob, but I've never found this to be the case: all the jazz fans and jazz musicians I've known have always been really inclusive and not at all elitist in any way.

My point about jazz musicians often doing studio work is also being missed by you: what I am saying is that most really good musicians who worked the gamut of popular music in recording studio sessions from 1920 to 1980 or later were well versed in jazz. That's not surprising, given that jazz is a more techically challenging idiom--and what one wants in a studio setting are folks who can site read and be adaptable. This is not a judgement call: it's juts an observation about the nature of studio work.

Maybe if you see "jazz" as continuous w/ much American popular music from Gershwin to Tom Waits and Ray Charles (David Fathead Newman was his arranger) and James Brown, rather than as a distinct genre ubntied to the main thrust of American musical history, you'll get my larger point here: jazz is just to American music what salt or butter is to cooking.
posted by ornate insect at 7:54 PM on April 20 [3 favorites]

well, i just played some of this backwards and have a sudden urge to trade my car in for a volvo, eat lots of ben and jerry's and get a job as a medical transcriptionist
posted by pyramid termite at 8:07 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

Jazz aficionados are, for the most part, just music bigots who like to hear the sound of themselves defending their bigotry

I am a working Jazz musician who does studio work, so thanks for the pigeon-hole.
posted by sourwookie at 8:16 PM on April 20

Nothing makes me want to jump out of a moving cab faster than when the driver turns up the smooth jazz station.
posted by wensink at 8:24 PM on April 20

I am a working Jazz musician...

No kidding? So, how's the pay at Taco Bell these days?

Is joke, is joke!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:32 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

thanks for the pigeon-hole

Hey, no problem, anytime.

Seriously, OK, so that was excessive. The worst Jazz fans are like that. Apologies to the non-bigoted Jazz lovers out there. I suppose I never hear much from the non-bigoted Jazz fans as they don't turn every discussion of music into a discussion of why Jazz is just so amazing. Still, I find many Jazz fans to have a kind of otaku attitude towards it. It is something that seems much more common with jazz than other musical genres.

See also: Parrotheads, Deadheads, Dave Matthews fratboy force, doo-wop revivals, white collar warriors that shout "LEMMY" or "MAIDEN!" and that record store clerk always driveling on about Yo La Tengo.

And, in Canada, Tragically Hip fans.
posted by GuyZero at 8:34 PM on April 20

and what one wants in a studio setting are folks who can site read...

Actually,no. For example, I often read this site when I'm on a session gig, so much so that some of the studios won't even let me bring my laptop into the sessions anymore... the bandleader's counting off the tune and instead of drumming, I'm over in the corner posting a comment in some "smooth jazz" thread or something...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:37 PM on April 20

fj.at m. --well the best sight readers are blind, especially on that old standard close your eyes
posted by ornate insect at 8:46 PM on April 20

actually, this is an awesome thread thanks in large part to ornate insect. And netbros, I do believe you are sincere. Which means, I guess, if you were trolling, you win. And if you weren't you still do. So that seems kinda like a win-win, a restricted-field, if you will. Nothing to get excited about, right? ;)
posted by mwhybark at 8:47 PM on April 20

netbros, you get major props from me for your grace under fire.

My opinion on this music, and the links you posted are... about the same as the majority opinion here, but your dignified acceptance of that almost... *almost*... makes me want to give it a chance.
posted by Alex404 at 8:49 PM on April 20

Thanks guys. No troll here. Just a genuine instrumental pop listener. With ornate insect's exceptional knowledge of American music history, I imagine he knows that Russ Freeman, Craig Chaquico, Larry Carlton, Brian Culbertson, and others are, in fact, outstanding musicians.

BTW ... Kenny G, not so much. Pffft.
posted by netbros at 8:56 PM on April 20

Most of the so called "Smooth Jazz" is just too generic for my taste. Although many of the artists of that genre are very technically proficient, a lot of the music seems to be missing something.

Having said that, though, I love me some Al di Meola!
posted by mrducts at 9:25 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Saxophones and mullets always go together.
posted by autodidact at 9:32 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

If you can read Spanish, you might enjoy this story by Benedetti on the effects of this music in real people: Muzak
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:45 PM on April 20

On the other hand...
posted by semmi at 10:20 PM on April 20

While I share some musical likes with Mr. Ornate here, I do believe his stance is based on the idea that other music that he does not like (for example, Britney Spears or Bob James) Is Not Real Music. While he obviously has the right to believe what he likes, in reality no-ones gets to decide that and behaving as if you do strikes me as rude if not delusional.

I am not a fan of this stuff either, but it does have a lineage in stuff that I like very much - the jazz funk of the 70s. Didn't see Grover Washington Jr., Roy Ayers, Herbie Hancock or Donald Byrd on Ornate's list but there is a direct line from those artists to "Smooth Jazz". So I am in not such a rush to dump on netbros taste because the qualitative differences between what he likes and what I like aren't quite so easy to pick out and my guess is many of you would think them identical.

That said, when I listen to the tracks netbros posted, I did have to wonder if time stopped for these guys about the time Yamaha released the DX7. It's like the mid 80s never ended. Not a good time for jazz/funk/fusion IMO, not much from that decade stands the test of time. But if that's what you like, good for you...

BTW, to whoever said "like Steely Dan without the irony" - you know, that's what I always think about when I listen to the instrumental breaks on Aja, the irony. Give me a break!
posted by pascal at 10:21 PM on April 20

pascal--for context, I tend to agree w/most of what Pat Metheny says about Kenny G in the link I provided. I tried to focus most of my posts on what I consider the mainline of jazz: if you reread my posts I have very little to say about smooth jazz directly. I don't deny smooth jazz is an offshoot of jazz: a treacly and to me soulless offshoot, but an offshoot nevertheless. My first post on this thread was to give props to many of the performers in the mainline of jazz who are perhaps less well known than they should be. I figured this was fair game, just as a post about Jewel's poetry would be fair game to talk about Shakespeare or Marianne Moore. I agree that it's just my opinion.
posted by ornate insect at 10:34 PM on April 20

With ornate insect's exceptional knowledge of American music history, I imagine he knows that Russ Freeman, Craig Chaquico, Larry Carlton, Brian Culbertson, and others are, in fact, outstanding musicians.

ornate insect, you have an impressive knowledge of jazz. Kudos!

What netbros mentioned above is very true. These smooth jazz people are VERY talented at what they do. Despite how they sound, they are more than proficient at playing their instruments. The problem that I've always had with smooth jazz is the studio effects. Everything sounds so processed.

I am a host of a jazz show at a university radio station. I recently came across a lady by the name of Carol Welsman and went to do an interview with her before a show. In my research I realized that much of her music could be thrown into the smooth jazz category. I hated it! Frankly, it was awful, at least to my ears. I kind of dreaded going to the show....

And the show was fantastic. Without the studio sheen, her music was wonderful. Her improvisations were delightful, her band was tight, her banter was interesting and her music was alive. What a difference between live and studio!

I've never been to a smooth jazz concert before, but I bet that these people are far more interesting in a live setting than they are in the studio.

Except for Kenny G. There is no excuse for him.

Thankfully, I have a choice as to whether I listen to this music or not. And just as importantly, I respect the fact that many of these artists have made a living at making music, whether I like it or not.
posted by ashbury at 10:38 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

OI: you think John Coltrane & Miles Davis (to give two examples from your list) are being eclipsed in the public conciousnessness by The Rippingtons? This is the playing field you are trying to level?
posted by pascal at 10:56 PM on April 20

pascal--thanks for picking up on the fact the list also contains many well known jazz masters. But it also contains a lot of lesser known ones. I would not be surprised if Kenny G has sold as many records as Trane, and certainly he's sold more than most of the figures on my list. More to the point, however, is that the radio market for smooth jazz is much bigger than the radio market for mainline jazz: the fomer is more ubiquitous than the latter. I don't want to make too fine a point of it, but I just think people should be aware of the mainline tradition as well. I genuinely apologize if my posts seemed gratuitous, harsh, rude, etc.
posted by ornate insect at 11:07 PM on April 20

My dad turned 50 and started listening to this tripe. I still don't get it.
posted by TrialByMedia at 11:17 PM on April 20

"Swing" and jazz-as-dance music was the 'smooth jazz' of the 40's...bebop arose in direct reaction to it...

Meanwhile, smooth jazz as of late has been crossing over into aping downtempo electronica sounds...and much 'lectronica proper seems sometimes indistinguishable from the smoove format...the smooth jazz station in my area even had an "acid jazz" block in the late night...
posted by bonefish at 11:44 PM on April 20

While I share some musical likes with Mr. Ornate here, I do believe his stance is based on the idea that other music that he does not like (for example, Britney Spears or Bob James) Is Not Real Music. While he obviously has the right to believe what he likes, in reality no-ones gets to decide that and behaving as if you do strikes me as rude if not delusional.

I think acts that are as cynically calculated and artificial as Britney Spears deserve this treatment, but otherwise I agree with you.

On fandom and elitism: I would identify as a jazz fan, but in my case it's a result of having started to learn to play jazz before really knowing the music very well. Ultimately it's a different experience listening to jazz with the intent to learn something from it, and it's hard to turn it off even when I'm just listening for pleasure. Unfortunately, I think that makes my experience minimally applicable, but here's my take:

"Serious" jazz has pretty much been in extreme intellectual mode since the 50s. People put a lot of work into intellectual music, and it becomes easy to think that it's better than any other kind. This is wrong. For my part I tend to think of intellectual music and popular music as different arts, using different mediums and serving different purposes. I love them both! I play bluegrass with a few friends, but half the time we just end up playing Steve Earle and Jerry Jeff Walker tunes.

That stuff means every bit as much to me as jazz does, but I think they satisfy different parts of me. Life without either would be very sad, so I have a hard time understanding people who refuse to listen to anything outside of the academic sphere of interest. I also think that the opposite position from that is a lot more understandable -- intellectual music just isn't worthwhile to people who aren't significantly involved with the play or study of music (or at least, it's been this way since around 1880).

As for the people who don't understand but still listen to "art" music, I can't help but think that a lot of them are in denial about the enjoyment they get from it. To be honest, I was in that position for a while as a teenager. I wanted to listen to intellectual things for the sake of their being intellectual. I'm glad to realize how misguided I was.
posted by invitapriore at 11:57 PM on April 20

invitapriore--most jazz is not really intellectual music, and even much of what seems at first glance to be intellectual in the late modern avant garde phase of jazz is often a hybrid rooted as much if not more in the feeling of spirituals (re: Albert Ayeler) or earlier jazz as it is in European modernism. "Free jazz" like bop often has parts where the improviser will quote and borrow from show tunes or more familiar popular music.

I am thoroughly against the notion of "intellectual" music: that element is far less pronounced than the "feeling" is, in even some of the more out-there music.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: the mainline of American music is a hybrid that stems from such things as ragtime, marching band music, field hollers, blues, gospel, and old-timey music: if thinking of American music as a whole, one can no more seperate "Delta blues" from "Tin Pan Alley" from "foxtrot swing" from "honky tonks" or "jigs and reels." Seen as a whole, American popular music is a remarkably diverse and syncretic affair, but it shares (especially from say 1920 to 1970) an unmistakable unity of personality and character. Like bootlegging, blue devils, or the wild west, American popular music was born from the brothels, speakeasies, and gambling halls of the between war peiod.

Certain musicians typify this, and perhaps it's best to think of certain pivitol figures like Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Rodgers, George Gershwin, Bessie Smith, Hank Williams, Duke Ellington, Woody Guthrie, Coleman Hawkins, as simply belonging to the golden era of American popular music--and not as jazz, country, Broadway musical, blues, etc.

I think some people are willfully wanting to associate my comments with elitism, when I've gone out of my way to show why I think the history of American music and the history of the jazz-blues tradition cannot be seperated in any meaningful way.
posted by ornate insect at 12:26 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

ornate insect: you're right, I oversimplified a bit. I don't agree with you that modern jazz isn't an intellectual music, but I do agree that it is more than that. It roots are still in blues and the American song, but it is in large part the domain of theorist/players now; look at Chick Corea, or, hell, Coltrane. There's no lack of feeling in that type of playing, but it's a matter of turning some sort of abstract exploration into an emotional experience. Players of popular music, whatever that is, largely aren't looking to challenge the boundaries of their vocabulary, because it doesn't serve their intent. Anyway, I don't think intellectual music has to be emotionless.
posted by invitapriore at 12:39 AM on April 21

invitapriore-yeah I agree. I'm also trying to tease out why there are these connections between all kinds of music--between Levon Helm, Percy Sledge, the Butthole Surfers, Carl Perkins, Etta James, Iggy, Graham Parsons, Janis, Andrew Hill and Sly Stone. I think there's a reason Cecil Taylor (or Lennie Tristano or Jimmy Giuffre) does not sound as "intellectualized" as certain European composers, or Ayler does not sound mechanical like Stockhausen. I think the great rush of music is "feeling:" autnomous, and in the case of much classic popular music it's just an ineffable thing. The fact is the word "jazz" gets in the way: jazz is just feeling, and it's like a great Kudzu vine of feeling that tends to wrap around all the other familair idioms of American music. Strictly speaking it does not exist. Check out Rufus Harley, the jazz bagpipes player, to grasp what I'm after here: there is way more active polyglot hybridization in the history of American popular music than these labels let on (Ellington did a polka suite for christ's sake). The first "out" stuff was Coleman Hawkins doing "Queer Notions" in the 1920s (I think?) and then "Picasso." Also Red Norvo's "Octopus" and Boyd Rayburn's stuff. American music was getting weird and mixed up before these labels were even codified.
posted by ornate insect at 12:56 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

This reminds me that my call is important and that I will be speaking to a sales representative just as soon as the next one becomes available.
posted by chillmost at 12:59 AM on April 21

As for the people who don't understand but still listen to "art" music, I can't help but think that a lot of them are in denial about the enjoyment they get from it.

I think you're completely wrong about art music - I think most people who listen to it are simply incapable of being tickled by the bland, colourless and flavourless music that's most of what you hear on the radio these days.

It's quite often that the art music I listen to moves me so much that tears literally roll down my cheeks. Does your cool jazz make you weep, or even laugh?


I started listening to that first song - it wasn't too bad until the whole band kicked in - but then, man, that's the most Godawful crap I ever heard, do you really listen to that?! How can these people make that music?! How can they call it jazz?!?

Jazz is jism, my friend, and this soft jazz has all the jizz taken out of it. It's like eating mayonnaise with a spoon right from the jar, it's simply astonishingly bad. I had to put on some of the noisy Boredoms music I could find (SUPER YOU from SUPER AE) to clean my palate.


Soft jazz to music is as soap opera is to drama, but much, much worse.

I love Miles and cool jazz and Brubeck who is considered pretty square these days and I thought I could like this but it is a horror and should be swept off the face of the earth. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd round all the smooth jazz musicians up and send them to some deserted island, erase or destroy all their recordings, and use drugs and hypnosis to eradicate all traces of their memory from human consciousness.


I wanted to listen to intellectual things for the sake of their being intellectual. I'm glad to realize how misguided I was.

What's misguided about that? I think trying to do intellectual things for that very reason is laudable, much better than the current ethos in this culture of doing mindless things just for the sake of their being mindless. What's wrong with trying to aspire to better things anyway?

I'm sorry your older self got lost. I sympathize with him or her much more. Perhaps you just didn't catch on? There is a lot to be heard, and there are things that are noise to the uninitiated but a banquet of delights to the educated palate.

I'm sure you'd hate what I'm listening to (the Boredoms song "7-->(Boriginal)" from Super Roots 7, sirens, washing fractured flanged guitar sounds that somehow lead you into this terrific anthemic rocker with that fantastic Boredoms drum section), take it from me that I do hear a great deal of stark, primitive beauty.

Listening to those gurgling guitars dive bombing over those two diminutive but powerful drummers, oh baby, it's my heaven on earth, but I would rip my ears out and slowly push them into my own rectum with my tongue rather than listen to another moment of that smooth jazz.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:00 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

This isn't about not "liking" the music. I don't like hip hop in general, but it has a soul, it's one I don't entirely like but it undeniably exists. Smooth jazz has no soul, it's the Stepford Wife of music. It's like one of those lifesize Japanese sex dolls, without the sex.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:12 AM on April 21

(((lupus_yonderboy--thanks for injecting some eclecticism. Apropos of nothing I too am eclectic: don't care for Throbbing Gristle, really like Giancinto Scelsi; dislike James Taylor, but think Fleetwood Mac's Rumors is great; Captain Beefheart I adore; am bored by Radiohead. Love X and the Germs; think the No Wave NYC bands were overrated. One of my main musical loves and interests is actually Brazilian music. And I like Bach, Satie, Debussy; although I respect Cage I confess he leaves me a bit cold. Ives I've tried, and some of it I do like. Lucinda Williams is brilliant. etc etc.)))
posted by ornate insect at 1:14 AM on April 21

lupus_yonderboy: I feel it was misguided because I stopped there, without understanding it as more than noise. Now that I do get to enjoy that music (I think) more fully, having done that seems silly.

I don't think we actually feel different about anything.
posted by invitapriore at 1:55 AM on April 21

This stuff is so weird. It's like shadow boxing, or zombie music. Take the Tourist In Paradise video: Mullet man in the blue shirt is bounding around and grimacing and emoting like this is high-octane high-emotion passion, and then his saxophone goes doo do dee doo dum de dum de dum.

It's like seeing a huge, sweating, shaking Pavarotti sucking in huge draughts of air, quivering under the strain, and then releasing an almighty ... hum-along-a-disney
posted by bonaldi at 3:04 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

grumblebee, don't kill yourself -- it's just a philosophical stance!
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:55 AM on April 21

It also MAY be the case that some aesthetic feelings are innate. By virtue of being human, there are certain things we necessarily like and dislike -- and that those things are the same for everyone. But, if such things exist, there's no point arguing about them, because we're already in agreement about them -grumblebee

Indeed, and to the extent our "aesthetic" response is innate, it must respond to very general properties of something like "music." There is no way our innate response distinguishes between genres or entails particular (social) discourses of musical or experiential authenticity. People *love* smooth jazz, and others hate it. Who are we to say someone else should not love the music they love? Or hate the music they hate?

I've spent most of my life thinking and writing about these questions, so it's a complicated subject for me. Of course I "love" music; I'm a musician, and a music scholar. Saying "I hate music" is a rhetorical point; no one challenges you if you say "I love all music." But few people actually *do* love (or even know, which would be impossible actually) "all" music.

So, as a scholar, my stance is to suspend my own aesthetic response to music in order to have an open mind about other people's aesthetic response. And to admit my own tastes are profoundly socially constructed, as are everyone's tastes, with reference to factors that have nothing at all to do with the sound structure of "the music" as such. It's those factors that interest me.

I recommend a wonderful book by philosopher Kathleen Higgins called *The Music of Our Lives,* which explores these questions insightfully. Higgins is a Nietzsche specialist who trained in classical philosophical aesthetics and had developed a strong interest in musical aesthetics a la Goodman, Langer, Meyer, etc. when she fell in love with Hindustani ("North Indian classical") music. The book is a sustained exploration of her own experience crossing a cultural and musical boundary line with the tools of Western musical-philosophical aesthetics, which she finds woefully inadequate to the task.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:47 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

And I will add, from the ethnomusicological point of view, many of the world's traditional musics are not "intended" to elicit an aesthetic response, just as are many of the world's modern, mass mediated musics. People do much more with music than listen to it from an aesthetic stance. Music that disappears into the background, does not disturb the "listening" mind with masses of new information, that renders a high level of structural redundancy or timbral integration, that does not require attending to a referential text, that stimulates entrainment or bodily engagement without disturbing one's attention to other tasks -- all of this has a long history in human cultural evolution. It's a western, modern habit of mind to rank musics in terms of their "aesthetic" qualities as worthy or not of esteem.

I have news for some of you: Bach wrote a lot of what was "background" music in his time; so did Haydn; Jelly Roll Morton was playing background music for customers at a whorehouse. Latterly, we backwards construct these musicians as great artists and listen reverently to their music in darkened theaters with perfect acoustics and few distractions. And to us, that's what this music becomes: framed as "art."
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:53 AM on April 21

we backwards construct these musicians as great artists

Um, that's an overreach. And having many friends who are professional musicians, I don't know a one of 'em who would sit there at the piano thinking to his or herself, "Yup, I'm just a background musician" -- even if they're tinkling away in a shopping mall. More like they're thinking, "I know this quote from The Way You Look Tonight in the middle of Beautiful Love would blow minds, if any of these schmucks were listening."
posted by digaman at 5:16 AM on April 21

You didn't know Bach; in his day he was effectively a servant of the church or a monarch, depending on when in his career (and occasionally both). And what a musician thinks while making music does not equal what the music means socially. I'm sure Bach had his "if any of these schmucks were listening" moments too.

So I don't think it's overreach. Bach *was* a great artist, but in a very different sense than we now think of him, in his own time. That's my point: we assimilate the vast diversity of human musical effort to the present, western worldview at our peril.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:22 AM on April 21

PS -- I have been a professional "background" musician, in the sense that I played Top 40/GB for a living for years as a lead guitarist. Sometimes I was really into my art and didn't care if anyone was listening, and gave it my all ripping out a solo on a Journey song that made me cringe to listen to in any other context. A lot of the time I was thinking, :"I wonder if they'll feed us, will my girlfriend still be awake when I get home, when do we get to take a break and smoke a spliff? etc" while my hands were doing their assigned job. I composed whole chapters of my dissertation in my head while playing Garth Brooks songs for people who didn't see me as any more than part of the furniture. Yet I played well (enough to make a living) and sometimes gave it my all for the sheer fun of doing so, even with crappy music. (Heck, I can even sing without paying attention to what I am doing after al those years of being a human jukebox.)

My argument is against assuming all musical experience can be assessed on a single scale of value and significance, naturalized as "aesthetic judgment." I'm not saying there is no great music, or bad music, within any given social construction of goodness and badness.

Heck, there's a whole lot of human expressive culture that is *neither* music nor language nor dance, but some mixture of the three (or more) that many of us would not recognize as "music."
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:28 AM on April 21

Take the example of Navajo curing ceremonies, such as the one described in McAlleser's 1954 classic *EnemyWay Music.*

This is, according to McAllester and his Navajo consultants, in no way "aesthetic" musical experience. It is a precise healing tool, and medicine men must master long, complex ceremonial song sequences *note for note perfect,* or if they screw it up the whole ceremony is a failure and the healing will not happen. You can't improvise; you can't be creative; you have to do it just right for reasons that have nothing to do with taking pleasure in the sound, ideologically speaking (and the Navajo, of course, also have music for aesthetic pleasure.)

Is it music? Most of us, upon hearing the EnemyWay songs, would say yes. In fact, a lot of people listen to music like this "as music," for aesthetic pleasure. It's been repurposed as "traditional music," as opposed to, say, "traditional medicine," which is largely what it is. But that would not make sense in the traditional context, where aesthetic pleasure is beside the point entirely.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:34 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

Musical tastes and likes evolve as we age.

All things evolve over time; for me the musical journey has built out rather than up. I still like the occasional Beach Boys or more-than-occasional Beatles song, as well as music that's new to me, like Gypsy Kings or Sia, or maybe a little tango.

Looking for something a little more mellow for background music as I've entered my fifties, Smooth Jazz fits the bill. I still have a lot of rock and roll in my collection, but what would we do without menus?

We're of the same vintage, but to me, smooth jazz is just part of the whole smorgasbord of aural entertainment, though I have to admit it has become a smaller part of the picture for me as time goes on. I liken it to pop or elevator music. In that vein, I've discovered that there is really some great music behind what is labeled "beautiful music." That if you go back to the original recordings of the 1920s to '40s, you can find music that's fine in the background and foreground. Think Ella Fitzgerald or Duke Ellington.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for much of smooth jazz. Yeah, it works in the background, but crank it up and what do you get? Just louder background music.

I seek out music that challenges me to think about what I'm hearing. Good background music for me is something by Zero 7, or old school Cuban jazz (thanks to Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club), or the aforementioned Duke Ellington.
posted by SteveInMaine at 5:52 AM on April 21

Richard Thompson agrees with Pat Metheney.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:45 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

Smooth jazz killed jazz as a viable art form.

Go to a jazz club now and you'll mostly see guys over 40 trying to impress their dates (who don't really like jazz anyway). Or you could wind up in one of those avant-garde "experimentalist" places where you'll mostly see the same over-40 guys, only this time without the dates.

Smooth jazz is the vultures and worms that feast on the decaying corpse of jazz. And there really isn't much left for them to pick at anymore.

Jazz Fusion was the beginning of the end - it was Jazz's last go at relevance before throwing in the towel. Fusion was when all the bad things started to happen - synths started creeping in, proggy elements started popping up (hel-loo Chick Corea!), and you even had icons like Miles Davis doing shit like covering Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time."

The problem with fusion was that they were trying to apply jazz stylings to modern pop music - unfortunately, at the time, modern pop music sucked a whole lot. Smooth Jazz was the next logical step after fusion - "Hey, instead of imitating boring music, why don't we just bypass the middleman and make our own boring music!"

After smooth jazz came about, I think everyone just gave up on jazz. At a certain point - let's say the late 70s and early 80s - I think that lots of would-be jazz musicians looked at the current state of jazz and said, "This is lame!" and then went into another art form. This is why nobody makes new jazz and why jazz is dead as a popular art form.

Smooth Jazz is devoid of any value, except that it gives verizon something to play you while you're on hold for 20 minutes waiting for customer service.
posted by Afroblanco at 8:28 AM on April 21

I can help it. When I hear "smooth jazz" I think cashmir sweaters, dockers and efficiently executed sex. I smell eucalyptus with a hint of orange and Jovan musk. I see mauve drapes, woks and International Male Pirate shirts. Sorry.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:32 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

SteveInMaine: Unfortunately, I can't say the same for much of smooth jazz. Yeah, it works in the background, but crank it up and what do you get? Just louder background music.


And somehow, by conditioning the public to the "lite fm" radio stations, and then creating a genre that sounds very much the same but with the occasional guitar lick or vocal excised, we've created an ambient sound the likes of which Brian Eno couldn't have anticipated, that disappears at any volume.
posted by mikeh at 8:48 AM on April 21

Saxophones and mullets always go together.

Hilarious! Back before I knew the name of this kind of music, my friends and I just used to call it "mullet jazz." As in, "Definitely some jazz mulletry going on, dude."
posted by Afroblanco at 8:56 AM on April 21

Metafilter: I smell eucalyptus with a hint of orange and Jovan musk.
posted by jquinby at 9:35 AM on April 21

This shit sucks. That said, Brubeck and Bob James have their brilliant moments, and don't deserve in any way to be lumped in with this dreck.
posted by stenseng at 10:16 AM on April 21

Most of the fans of Smooth Jazz (I prefer the name instrumental pop so it doesn't get confused with jazz jazz) are in the 35-65 age group, including myself. Many MeFites are not.

I'm well inside the 35-65 age group, and I'm definitely not a fan of smooth jazz. Just another data point, I guess, but your musical taste doesn't have to turn to mush as you get older.
posted by klausness at 10:17 AM on April 21

That's my point: we assimilate the vast diversity of human musical effort to the present, western worldview at our peril.

...And talk about it until (we) drop rather than seek out, listen, and recognize new, not yet assimilated music making.
posted by semmi at 11:33 AM on April 21

I'm well inside the 35-65 age group, and I'm definitely not a fan of smooth jazz.

I only said what I did about that age group to mean there are few twentysomethings and seventysomethings who like intrumental pop (although there's an 18 year old kid who works with me who loves this stuff ... he's always borrowing my CDs), not that everyone within 35-65 likes it.

It's obviously OK not to like this music. Doesn't bother me. There are those, though, who may like it, and may find some of the links useful.
posted by netbros at 11:38 AM on April 21

This thread has been interesting, to say the least.

I'll add that I don't know much about smooth jazz, but if you find anything by Hubert Laws, Larry Coryell, or see Ron Carter's name on any CTI Records release from the '70s, you really need to pick it up.
posted by sleepy pete at 12:05 PM on April 21

And talk about it until (we) drop rather than seek out, listen, and recognize new, not yet assimilated music making.

Speak for yourself!
posted by fourcheesemac at 12:42 PM on April 21

Afroblanco: since jazz fusion evolved in the late 60s and early 1970s, which parts of the "modern pop music" from that time do you think most contributed to fusion's boringness? Marvin Gaye? Stevie Wonder? Jimi Hendrix? Led Zep? Abba? I am genuinely curious.

(BTW, a number of people have referenced Pat Metheny's views on the subject - but have any of you listened to any of his recent efforts? That is some ghastly, saccharine shit right there. The guy had his moments, for sure, but they have not been recent.)
posted by pascal at 1:13 PM on April 21

And talk about it until (we) drop rather than seek out, listen, and recognize new, not yet assimilated music making.

Speak for yourself!
posted by fourcheesemac

It's hard over the noise you're making.
posted by semmi at 1:40 PM on April 21

I'm sorry, that was a knee-jerk reaction for your comment to speak for myself, when obviously that's what I was doing: speaking for myself, expressing my annoyance with the state of affairs where jazz musicians, as artists of originality in general, are pushed into the background by the categorizing and interpreting chatter of critics, reviewers, producers, and educators, the whole shebang of merchandisers who hype success and make themselves a better living and more prestigious positions than most creative and independent musicians have.
posted by semmi at 2:36 PM on April 21

Yeah, well, semmi, I still think you can go stick your apology and its rationalization up your ass, actually. Unlike you, I suspect, I've *been* one of those "creative and independent musicians," and I'm an anthropologist in my current life who works closely with Native American music and musicians, about which I suspect you and many of the self-proclaimed experts on "unassimilated" music in this thread know very little despite your proclaimed erudition and sophisticated taste for the non-commercial (as if "jazz" has ever been anything but a commercial, professional music).

So if my "chatter" is too "noisy" for you to hear your music over, go listen to you pure, precious, authentic, "unassimilated" (whatever the heck that means, from an ethnomusicological point of view it's meaningless) music, and maybe avoid jumping in to a discussion forum on the internet where we're trading words, and not riffs or demos. Or go make some yourself. Even here, it's actually not hard to "speak for yourself," no matter what I say. You type, you post, simple. No one is shouting anyone else down in this thread that I noticed, certainly not me. I've been nothing but civil and thoughtful in my posts in this thread, even if my ideas have been (apparently, to my surprise) provocative.

What some of you are saying is that people who like smooth jazz (or whatever) must be dupes, morons, or fools. Well, someone thinks the same thing about you no matter what music *you* like. "Jazz" was music for uncultured morons, from the point of view of enlightened and sophisticated people, for much of the 20th century.

People treat music like its a measure of moral rectitude; that's the fucking problem here. I didn't defend smooth jazz specifically, just called out the idea that musical taste equals moral value. I know an elderly African American man who loves smooth jazz; he's a wonderful guy, not an idiot; he worked hard his whole life and he finds smooth jazz relaxing in his retirement from a career as a custodian at a university. You aren't better than him because you prefer Ornette Coleman or Bjork to George Benson or whatever. And you music isn't better than his music because you have sophisticated tastes as a result of growing up better off than him.

It's just music. Same as anyone else's music.

Bunch of fucking snobs, really.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:08 PM on April 21 [17 favorites]

PS -- sorry to crap in the thread, netbros; it was a brave and interesting post and much of the discussion was interesting.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:12 PM on April 21

"Fuzak"
posted by setver at 6:02 PM on April 21

No prob f c m. I thought that was a great comment.
posted by netbros at 6:48 PM on April 21