Howard the Duck

i like my jazz noisy and with a dissonant or atonal bite

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ThePhanastasio

I'm still not too down with smooth jazz. Most of what I hear sounds really cheesy.

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Anteater

I hate to sound like a broken record kids, but not all smooth jazz is Kenny G pedestrian mediocrity, and I'd be happy to provide other bands/examples to anyone who thinks otherwise.

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ThePhanastasio

I did say *most*. I'm not going to go out and buy a compilation of smooth jazz music or anything, but there's still some stuff I'm pretty down with in the genre. There is, however, a whole heck of a lot that I'm not.

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Lisnaholic

Don`t think this`ll ever be my favourite genre, because there are so many pitfalls on the road to making decent smooth jazz. The pitfalls are musical clichés which, for me, include;
the sexy-sounding saxophone ( Kenny G.)
the noodling trio ( Kevin Eubanks )
the sultry songstress
the feeble instrumental cover of what was once a decent song

With all this going against it, the Gems-To-Junk ratio in smooth jazz must be about 1:100. Nevertheless, Anteater is obvously tapping into some gems, with The Rippingtons, who I`d never heard of. So, yes, I`d be interested in recommendations of smooth jazz that is this good:

^ These guys reminded me a bit of another group who could also walk the fine line necessary to produce decent smooth jazz, The Crusaders. Here is a live clip, although it`s not taken from their Images album, which is the one I`d recommend for being polished, and instrumental, from start to finish :

The Virgin

i think the perfect sound of Jazz is that done by Shirley Bassey.
She's just pure and clear when she does her music.
Love her.

Anteater

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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Howard the Duck

^^I actually do own some Rippingtons and Crusaders

they're awright, I suppose

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Lisnaholic

^ Yeah, it`s not the kind of music to blow your head off, is it, Il Duce ? But I find it`s nice for when I`m relaxing or doing the housework.

When do you guys listen to smooth jazz ?

I liked the Najee Breezy tracks, Anteater, thanks. You make a good point about smooth jazz needing something else in the mix to make it interesting. Maybe that point is actually illustrated by your Lonnie Liston Smith clips, which TBH, I found so smooth that my attention kept slipping off ! Sorry.

This clip is of Chico Hamilton, who is a pretty well-regarded jazz drummer, though to watch his performance here, you might wonder why. In his defence, we should consider his age : 87 years old if the Youtube comments are to be believed !

Howard the Duck

^^i have some David Benoit and David Sanborn as well

the Crusaders were better when they had more funk

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