The recent post about John Klemmer as a pioneer of smooth jazz struck a nerve with me. I don't want to cloud that post; Klemmer was (is?) a fine saxophonist. While Klemmer certainly made the pop charts, I think it is a stretch to credit him with creating the smooth jazz genre or the smoothest jazz saxophone work of the time.
The Klemmer albums do represent smooth jazz combined with heavy production values which at the time produced ear candy at a level we were not yet used to.
However, I believe there was plenty of smooth jazz that predates good recording quality.
As a later example (his later works were well recorded) in a saxophonist, I would offer Paul Desmond. He was not exclusive to smooth jazz (and I would never credit him with creating the genre), but whatever he played, he played with amazing finesse and smoothness as a performer, and much of his music was indeed quite smooth. He has the uncanny ability to sound like a flute (for a sax) with little of the edge often associated with a sax. Here are a couple of examples:
And, for fun (not smooth jazz), here is his cover of Mrs. Robinson (Simon and Garfunkel):
As an aside, Desmond is probably best known for writing the biggest selling jazz-single of all time (per wikipedia), "Take Five" performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I would never argue that "Take Five" was smooth jazz, but Desmond's Alto Sax certainly smooths out the percussive nature of this song.
It is only in the last 5 years I have been discovering Desmond (who died in '77). I don't always like the music he plays, but he is certainly consistent in the quality of his presentation. As a amateur saxophonist, his technique defines smooth sax for me. For the record, the sax solo on Pink Floyd's "Money" is my favorite sax style (with lots of edge!), but I've got to give Desmond a shout-out when it comes to smooth sax goodness!
