Re: IS STEELY DAN JAZZ?

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 09:46:12 -0500
Newsgroups: alt.music.steely-dan
Size: 1,310 bytes

"Ðon ßailey" wrote:
>
> There's Jazz and there's Jazz.
>
> Branford Marsalis describes what some local "light jazz"
> stations play as "Half baked"(i.e. Kenny G crap). I personally
> find this stuff nauseating. I have some friends that think it's *cool*
> to listen to this sort of thing. To each his own.
>
There's "light jazz", where they make mood music but don't want to call it mood
music, and then there's smooth jazz, a different beast altogether. The best
description I've heard for smooth jazz is that it's a fusion of jazz, new age,
and pop. And while I tend to think of people like Steve Laury and Paul
Hardcastle, there seem to be a lot of good musicians making smooth jazz, or who
can straddle both regular jazz and smooth jazz: Rick Braun, Bob James, Boney
James, Brian Culbertson, Paul Taylor, David Benoit, Keiko Matsui, Larry Carlton,
Jeff Lorber, Fourplay, George Duke, Special EFX, Wayman Tisdale, Spyro Gyra, and
others that I'm still discovering.
> Jazz is huge. Not everyone gets it. I didn't appreciate what I now
> consider REAL jazz early on but I really liked SD at a young age
> and I think it primed me for the real stuff later on.
> I once came across a good website that described the different eras and styles
of jazz, but I'll be darned if I remember where it was.