A few years ago, my colleagues and I were on a cruise around Seattle's Lake Washington, one of those mandatory fun, team-building morale events. As the boat cruised inside Yarrow Point on the east side of the lake, the tour guide pointed out Kenny G's house, at which point someone next to me said, "So that's the house that schlock built."
In a parenthetical note in an earlier post, I'd said that I consider "smooth jazz" to be an oxymoron, but that doesn't quite capture the full point. Because, being smooth doesn't mean it can't be jazz. To illustrate the point, I've included a relatively recent video of the Dave Brubeck Quartet performing Three to Get Ready.
I once heard someone describe Paul Desmond's saxophone as "creamy," and thought, immediately, that it's the perfect simile. To be certain, cream is, indeed, very smooth. It is, however, also very rich and has a lot of flavor. And, that's the difference between "smooth jazz" and jazz that's smooth.
If the primary attribute of a piece of music is the fact that it is "smooth," then that piece of music has been stripped of the very attributes that we would associate with jazz: complex rhythms and/or harmonies--dynamics that create and release tension in interesting, often surprising, ways. To that end, "smooth jazz" is an oxymoron. If it's jazz, then there are other attributes that contribute to its richness and flavor such that we don't think of it as being just "smooth."
In all of that, I'm also trying hard not to be pretentious. To say that smooth jazz is an oxymoron does not imply that all of the music that gets labelled as "smooth jazz" is bad music. Consider the Earth, Wind & Fire video I just posted. It's difficult to distinguish that from a lot of good music that gets labelled as "smooth jazz."
But, I wouldn't use the word "jazz" to describe Earth, Wind and Fire's music. Granted, there's a good deal of jazz influence on the music, but that doesn't make it jazz. Instrumental soul music, maybe. R&b without lyrics, perhaps. It's just not jazz.
So, listen to Paul Desmond, and see if you don't hear the difference. But, don't feel guilty if you also get a hankering to listen to, say, Sade's Is it a Crime.
My Trusted MOGs
Mrs. Ivylander used to have one of those "smooth jazz" stations on all the time in the kitchen (although she did draw the line at Kenny G., to her credit). Although 90 percent of the time it made me want to weep, occasionally a track or two would emerge that would break through the limburger. I seem to recall that some of the stuff Pat Metheny did in the Seventies was in that vein, but had some flavor and wit to it....
My Trusted MOGs
Right on about breaking through the limburger. Generally, if you have to listen to music that you don't like, it's better if it's smooth than rough. As for music that you "get to" rather than "have to" listen to, it's hard to do better than Paul Desmond. It's great to finally see him play. Also, Brubeck's solo is fun to watch.
Check out this 1961 cut by Desmond, with Jim Hall on guitar. "I've Got You Under My Skin."