Hybrid form of jazz popular - and the subject of much dispute

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 19:19:04 +0900
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
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Here's a good one for the naysayers.
Hentoff admits smooth jazz " is part of the [jazz] continuum."
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http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=710&xlc=1023860
Hybrid form of jazz popular - and the subject of much dispute
By Hector Saldaña
San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted : 07/13/2003 12:00 AM
Many jazz purists despise it.
Some of its top performers say they don't play jazz at all.
But smooth jazz - a hybrid of jazz, urban pop, R&B, New Age and Latin
music - dominates jazz sales and radio airplay.
The music - also called pop jazz, contemporary jazz and alternative jazz and
sometimes veering into New Age instrumental - outsells traditional jazz
purveyors such as Sonny Rollins and Wynton Marsalis.
"Smooth jazz and contemporary jazz is doing very well," said Nate Herr,
senior vice president of marketing and production at Verve Music Group. "It
appeals to a wide demographic of adults. It's adult music."
Jazz has become a niche market. It accounts for less than 5 percent of total
album sales, and that's including the multiplatinum sales of Norah Jones and
Diana Krall, Herr said.
"But jazz has a much greater presence than what we can deduce from record
sales or Arbitrons on the radio," said Howard Mandel, president of the Jazz
Journalist Association in New York.
Even New York, "where jazz is always percolating," isn't immune to smooth
jazz, Mandel said.
"There is an audience here also," he said. "It may not be in the middle of
Manhattan. David Sanborn plays here. Kirk Whalum plays here."
Smooth jazz is known for its polished sound of electronic wind instruments,
soprano sax, keyboards and chimes. It's not straight-ahead, avant-garde or
subversive music.
Smooth jazz's top acts include Richard Elliot (who performs in San Antonio
on Friday on the multi-artist Guitars & Saxes bill), newcomer Mindi Abair,
Jeff Lorber, the Rippingtons and Boney James.
Its pioneers are Herb Alpert, Chuck Mangione, Michael Franks, Spyro Gyra and
George Benson.
Smooth jazz's superstar, of course, is Kenny G, who has sold more than 70
million albums.
The music's popularity doesn't impress traditional jazz critics.
Jazz expert Mandel said smooth jazz is "unadventurous."
Historian and music critic Nat Hentoff calls terms like smooth jazz and pop
jazz "self-describing, accurate definitions" for "people that like
watered-down stuff."
"It has very little to do with the original (jazz form)," Hentoff said from
New York.
But he added that he really doesn't like to categorize jazz with "artificial
distinctions," and "that it's all part of the same continuum."
"You can't hold the music down, which doesn't mean you forget the roots," he
said. "Duke Ellington once told me that he had no patience for categories or
timelines. It's all up to the individual. If the player has something to
say, that will last."
Hentoff praised trombonist Wycliffe Gordon as a modern player in the true
jazz tradition. Many smooth jazz stars wouldn't make such a claim for
themselves.
"Most of us don't call ourselves jazz musicians," said sax player Richard
Elliot. "Which is ironic when you think that a lot of the jazz purists out
there really resent the word 'jazz' being used to describe what we do."
He prefers the phrase "contemporary instrumental," though the smooth jazz
label has stuck.
In fact, Elliot considers what he plays not a genre, but "a music
lifestyle." Smooth jazz fans agree with him.
"It really is close to a perfect world," Sandy Shore, founder of online
radio station Smoothjazz.com, said of the diverse urban audiences the genre
pulls.
Well-heeled African Americans, Hispanics and whites - young and old, female
and male - make up the smooth-jazz audience. That has been evident at smooth
jazz concerts here for some time.
In contrast, in other genres Bruce Springsteen - hardly a polarizing
artist - attracted a virtually all-white crowd in Austin earlier this year.
And R&B legend Luther Vandross' audience is primarily black.
Musicians and supporters say that diverse audience is responding to the
diversity of influences in smooth jazz. Just don't call it elevator music.
"The roots of smooth jazz are steeped in American roots music, a combination
of jazz standards, of R&B, of gospel, of soul," said Cameron Smith,
executive producer and host of the syndicated "Smooth Jazz TV" (12:30 a.m.
Sundays on WOAI in San Antonio). "Smooth jazz really is a hybrid of all
those musical forms."
It is "not watered-down Muzak," he added. "That it's easier to listen to
gives it its wide appeal."
"Smooth Jazz TV" started seven years ago and now is in 11 major markets,
including Los Angeles. It's the only show of its kind, creating content with
its own production company.
Its creator is passionate about smooth jazz.
"Some people like it; some people don't. When you talk to a so-called jazz
purist, the reason they don't like it is because they're living with their
heads in the sand," Smith said. "Smooth jazz is a viable genre of the jazz
art form. It's not the only one, but it's certainly the most commercially
successful."
Sax player Mindi Abair, a newcomer who recently scored a No. 1 contemporary
jazz hit with "Lucy's," calls what she plays "American music" and
"alternative jazz." She's also performed with Duran Duran and backed up the
Backstreet Boys and Mandy Moore.
"I don't want to put my music in a box. I want to let it breathe," Abair
said. "The music that's being made is a mixture of R&B and pop and rock."
Smooth jazz's core audience in San Antonio remains loyal despite limited
radio airplay and promotion, a killer in the rock concert business.
"Since we lost our smooth jazz radio station (KCJZ-FM) a few years ago, we
haven't had a whole lot of major smooth jazz shows, but the ones that do
come, the people come out to see them," said concert promoter Bill Sexauer
at Stone City.
"It's an untapped audience. Contemporary jazz is the kind of music that
crosses a lot of boundaries."
Aaron Prado, musical director of KRTU-FM at Trinity University, programs 17
hours of traditional and cutting-edge jazz daily. He counters that smooth
jazz "doesn't swing" and is, at best, "musical wallpaper."
Instead he programs Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke
Ellington, plus New Orleans jazz, swing music, hard bop, small combos,
classic, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, experimental and fusion. Prado does
allow for a few hours of smooth jazz radio on Saturday evenings.
"We don't really consider that what we do," he said. "It's not creative
music. It's a case-by-case basis."
Likewise, jazz hosts such as Dan Klein, Emery Hutzler and Bobby Johnson of
San Antonio College's KSYM-FM rarely program smooth jazz.
To smooth jazz radio host Jabari Warfield, 38, at KKMJ-FM in Austin,
however, the music's impact is profound, if gentle.
"It's a nice diversion," Warfield said. "It's good stuff to relax to. But
it's not background music. They are great players.
"We fill a void with what we do. There are people that starve for this. We
try to give them rich variety."
Smooth jazz, and "soft rock," radio stations also serve as an outlet for
harder-to-define artists.
Pop jazz singer George Bugatti just finished making an album with "American
Idol" music producer Nigel Wright. Bugatti's attracting young audiences with
his Frank Sinatra-inspired vibe, and he expects they'll find the new "A
Night For Romance" on smooth jazz outlets.
"There's no doubt that we're going to get most of our play on adult
contemporary and smooth jazz stations," he said from Las Vegas.
Smooth jazz stations also have embraced tamed rockers such as Steely Dan,
Daryl Hall, Craig Chaquico and Rick Derringer.
"It's an acquired taste, it's subjective and some people choose to diss it,"
said "Smooth Jazz TV" host Smith. "But we're not going to go away."
Probably not. Sandy Shore programmed smooth jazz at regular radio beginning
in the '80s. She started Smoothjazz.com in 2000.
It's now the No. 1 smooth jazz resource on the Internet, programming music
24 hours daily. Smoothjazz.com is in the Top 5 of Internet radio.
Shore said smooth jazz now has "a global reach" and is "defining the genre."
"To reach a global audience is nirvana," Shore said, adding that the future
of smooth jazz depends on developing new artists and getting the
demographics younger.
David Muñoz at KQXT-FM, organizer of the 10th annual Summer Jazz Fest at
Crossroads of San Antonio mall, said smooth jazz audiences already have more
disposable income and are more intelligent than the average music buyer and
concert fan. Muñoz's Saturday and Sunday jazz show has been an S.A. staple
for 14 years.
"We need to grow it," Shore said. "We care about artists that make us sound
young and hip. We see the format as being very hip. The word 'smooth' is
very hip right now. In other countries, the format is considered very cool.
It's a vibe."