Say what you will, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Kenny G. I’m a sucker for the pure, spun-sugar sax appeal of instrumental hits like “Songbird,” “Silhouette” and the aptly named “Sentimental.…
” — part hatchet job, part sophisticated meta-inquiry into the slippery subject of aesthetics — makes it sound like that’s something shameful to admit. But as a film critic with fairly esoteric tastes in cinema, I’ve never been embarrassed that my preferences in music are hopelessly square by comparison. Nor should you.
Sure, he revolutionized the commercial pop music establishment, but that’s almost beside the point. Before Kenny G, no solo instrumentalist had sold anywhere near the number of albums that he has, or received that kind of widespread cross-format radio play. Is he a jazz artist? R&B? Adult contemporary? Easy listening? The answer is yes, all of the above.
Ouch. But not wrong. Ironically, that’s what many people love about Kenny G: He’s corny, but sincere. Let the snobs sneer. So many people have a tendency to sabotage their own success, whereas Gorelick’s essentially the made-it-big version of those guys you hear playing sax in subway tunnels or park clearings, making indecent love to their instruments. Eyes closed, head back, they play from the heart, doing elaborate loop-de-loops for your approval.
Where did Kenny G get his signature sound? Following a music recommendation from Gardiner in high school, “I tried to become the white Grover Washington Jr.,” he recalls. To illustrate, Lane samples an incredibly similar-sounding piece of smooth jazz. That’s what the radio stations came to dub Kenny G’s genre of music: “smooth jazz.” Lane interviews legendary Arista Records producer Clive Davis and the DJs who helped coin the term.
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