Good vid there Lisna! I actually own a few Crusaders releases.
Bands like them (and The Rippingtons for that matter) kind of illustrates an interesting point about smooth jazz: the genre only really works for a serious listener when there's a noticeable fusion, funk/soul or pre-fusion jazz (modal or otherwise) influence upon the proceedings. The fact that Kenny G is the first name that comes to your average listener's mind when they hear the words "smooth jazz" is just an unfortunate side effect of popular commercialism.
That being said, two other artists whom I consider at the top of the smooth jazz canon of talent would be Najee and Lonnie Liston Smith.
Najee is interesting for a number of reasons, one of which being that he seems to have a peculiarly excellent knack for incorporating urban grooves into flute and saxaphone compositions. He occasionally goes into muzak territory, but for the most part he's a breath of fresh air in the smooth jazz world.
Lonnie Liston Smith, on the other hand, could be considered one of smooth jazz's godfathers as a genre. He's primarily known for his keyboard work on a lot of classic Pharoah Sanders recordings, but Lonnie's own band The Cosmic Echoes are about as chilled out as you can get when it comes to smooth fusion.
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