Why do people despise Kenny G?

[highfigh]

I’ll bite. I’ve seen Kenny G live. He’s a very good musician but only so-so in terms of composing music. My theory is that it annoys some people that he’s been commercially successful with that combination. It doesn’t bother me. It’s okay for what it is.

My personal favorite is Charley Parker. He had raw talent. It was as if he willed new (at that time) music into existence. Just my opinion of course.

I wouldn't discount his addictions as sources for what he did, though. OTOH, the Bebop guys were influenced by any music they could find- one of Parker's favorite things to do was listen to Stravinsky and analyze the music. Add Coltrane and Miles Davis to that particular list.

Personally, I don't care if someone is commercially successful but he played much better music before he became the darling of the Weenie Jazz crowd.

If you want to hear the opinion of someone who REALLY doesn't like him, check out Pat Metheny's rant on YouTube.

 

[ryanosaur]

If you hate him, what is your opinion of a lot of the stuff that's popular now- some songs are lucky if they have a pitch range of five notes. Bores the shyte out of me. Nothing interesting melodically, harmonically or rhythmically and nonsense 'lyrics'. I have preferred instrumental music for decades and really got into Jazz when I was working at a music store- some of the teachers & students were very good and then, I took a Jazz History class at UW-Milwaukee and the instructor was a wealth of knowledge- he was really there to develop the Jazz Major program but his past experience and contacts enabled him to bring people like Nat Adderley to the school for performances (which I attended). He eventually moved on to teach at other colleges in a similar capacity- since the classroom had a piano, he would demonstrate the styles of others and when I say 'demonstrate', I mean 'play exactly the way they would play'. He also told us about a club where he and other great musicians from the area, musical faculty and others, would play. I REALLY miss that club and that time- many of the musicians have moved on and others have passed on, but they had a tremendous impact on music in this city.

I was listening to XM when I still subscribed and they had a show called 'Beyond Jazz'- it was one of the few stations I listened to and before they decided to gouge my eyes out with their rate increase, it was almost worth the cost, by itself. They would announce who was playing in various parts of the country and where- one band was p[aying in Washington DC and they were called 'The Dead Kenny Gs' (paraphrasing the Punk band 'The Dead Kennedys').

I listened to Smooth Jazz for a while, until it became worse than Muzak. Music doesn't need to be so complex that it goes over the heads of most people but with each generation, interest in music that's actually interesting on its own fades away except for people who somehow become interested, maybe through their parents or other acquaintances who might be musicians. I know some younger musicians who fall into this category and some of them are great. I also know a Trumpeter who teaches at the Frost School of Music (Florida) and in NYC, as well as being a two-time Grammy winner- one for his work with Eddie Palmieri and another for his own 'large group;. He kills in any style he plays and he KNEW what he wanted to do at a young age. He has some videos on YouTube, playing some serious Bop, as well as some instructional videos.

I stopped listening to most Pop music sometime in the '90s. By the mid '00s I don't think I tuned into any radio station by choice.
Back then, the College scene started getting too bubblegum, and everything coming out of the R&B or Soul category sounded alike. Rock stopped being Rock'n'Roll. Hell, even now I can't abide what is passing as Hip Hop most of the time.
For every good composition I stumble on in my journeys today, I find 5 that I can't listen too at all and 10-15 merely passable works that interest me only on the basis of them not boring me to death.
Mind, it's not that I don't try new stuff: I do. But I admit having a very high bar for what I want to listen to. I lower the bar some for what I'm willing to listen to, yet that leaves a significant swath of production efforts that maybe only get something between a single listen... or less!
A good example is that I used to really enjoy Jack White through most of the duration of the White Stripes. I think it was Icky Thump when I started souring on his direction, not completely disliking it as there was quite a bit of good stuff on that album. But then he did his first Solo album and maybe 2 of the cuts interested me.
His efforts with the Raconteurs were also of diminishing interest to me. On the other hand, I found myself really digging the Deadweather, but I think that had more to do with the added contribution of Allison Mosshart (The Kills) than it did Jack White.
Anyway...

I find myself, being an absolute lover of Rock'n'Roll, relying on what has come before. I'm always glad to hear something new, but all too often, I'd rather listen to The Stooges and Iggy Pop, MC5, Dream Syndicate, The Pixies, PJ Harvey, Morphine, Tom Waits...
I still love Classic Rock, too. However, I don't think Red Hot Chili Peppers is "Classic Rock" and I chafe pretty hard at anything they did after One Hot Minute... Anthony Kiedis shouldn't sing.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Has anyone already said it's because people have taste?

(I'm just teasing, I love and listen to a heap of shitty music and am not ashamed to say so)

Kenny G
View attachment 52214

Get it? Both flat and minor.

That reminds me of a joke my dad used to tell: What key do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor! (It doesn’t quite work in writing but you get the drift)

 

[highfigh]

I stopped listening to most Pop music sometime in the '90s. By the mid '00s I don't think I tuned into any radio station by choice.
Back then, the College scene started getting too bubblegum, and everything coming out of the R&B or Soul category sounded alike. Rock stopped being Rock'n'Roll. Hell, even now I can't abide what is passing as Hip Hop most of the time.
For every good composition I stumble on in my journeys today, I find 5 that I can't listen too at all and 10-15 merely passable works that interest me only on the basis of them not boring me to death.
Mind, it's not that I don't try new stuff: I do. But I admit having a very high bar for what I want to listen to. I lower the bar some for what I'm willing to listen to, yet that leaves a significant swath of production efforts that maybe only get something between a single listen... or less!
A good example is that I used to really enjoy Jack White through most of the duration of the White Stripes. I think it was Icky Thump when I started souring on his direction, not completely disliking it as there was quite a bit of good stuff on that album. But then he did his first Solo album and maybe 2 of the cuts interested me.
His efforts with the Raconteurs were also of diminishing interest to me. On the other hand, I found myself really digging the Deadweather, but I think that had more to do with the added contribution of Allison Mosshart (The Kills) than it did Jack White.
Anyway...

I find myself, being an absolute lover of Rock'n'Roll, relying on what has come before. I'm always glad to hear something new, but all too often, I'd rather listen to The Stooges and Iggy Pop, MC5, Dream Syndicate, The Pixies, PJ Harvey, Morphine, Tom Waits...
I still love Classic Rock, too. However, I don't think Red Hot Chili Peppers is "Classic Rock" and I chafe pretty hard at anything they did after One Hot Minute... Anthony Kiedis shouldn't sing.

If you hate commercial radio and like all of the ones in the last part, check out www.wmse.org- they play a wide variety, almost all of the staff are volunteers and they archive their shows. The only support from the school is the building- everything else is from listeners. I was able to listen to this station in a primitive form when I was at that school, starting in '75 but it didn't have a license to transmit off-campus. Once they got the go-ahead from the FCC and the transmitter, I became a loyal listener in early-1981. That school has had a radio license since July, 1922.

Oddly enough, MKE has a new station that doesn't play lame crap called The Fonz- https://liveonlineradio.net/fonz-fm-100-3