Klarinet Archive - Posting 000276.txt from 2000/06

From: rgarrett@-----.edu
Subj: [kl] Pat Metheny interview regarding Kenny G.
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 22:02:56 -0400

Sorry for any language that Metheny lays out, but this was sent to me, and
knowning the interest that has taken place several times on this list
regarding Kenny G......I thought it might be interesting.

RG

Subject: Don't sugar coat it, Pat[long]
check this out from patmethenygroup.com.
Date:
Jun 05 2000

Subject:
Controversy and Kenny G
Question to Pat Metheny:
Pat, could you tell us your opinion about
Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as
being less than enthusiastic about him and
his music. I would say that most of the
serious music listeners in the world would
not find your opinion surprising or unlikely -
but you were vocal about it for the first time.
You are generally supportive of other
musicians it seems.
Pat's Answer:
kenny g is not a musician i really had much
of an opinion about at all until recently.
there was not much about the way he
played that interested me one way or the
other either live or on records. i first heard
him a number of years ago playing as a
sideman with jeff lorber when they opened a
concert for my band. my impression was
that he was someone who had spent a fair
amount of time listening to the more pop
oriented sax players of that time, like grover
washington or david sanborn, but was not
really an advanced player, even in that
style. he had major rhythmic problems and
his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was
extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic
based and blues-lick derived patterns, and
he basically exhibited only a rudimentary
understanding of how to function as a
professional soloist in an ensemble - lorber
was basically playing him off the bandstand
in terms of actual music. but he did show a
knack for connecting to the basest
impulses of the large crowd by deploying
his two or three most effective licks (holding
long notes and playing fast runs - never
mind that there were lots of harmonic clams
in them) at the keys moments to elicit a
powerful crowd reaction (over and over
again) . the other main thing i noticed was
that he also, as he does to this day, play
horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.

of course, i am aware of what he has
played since, the success it has had, and
the controversy that has surrounded him
among musicians and serious listeners.
this controversy seems to be largely fueled
by the fact that he sells an enormous
amount of records while not being anywhere
near a really great player in relation to the
standards that have been set on his
instrument over the past sixty or seventy
years.

and honestly, there is no small amount of
envy involved from musicians who see one
of their fellow players doing so well
financially, especially when so many of
them who are far superior as improvisors
and musicians in general have trouble just
making a living. there must be hundreds, if
not thousands of sax players around the
world who are simply better improvising
musicians than kenny g on his chosen
instruments. it would really surprise me if
even he disagreed with that statement.

having said that, it has gotten me to
thinking lately why so many jazz musicians
(myself included, given the right "bait" of a
question, as i will explain later) and
audiences have gone so far as to say that
what he is playing is not even jazz at all.

stepping back for a minute, if we examine
the way he plays, especially if one can
remove the actual improvising from the often
mundane background environment that it is
delivered in, we see that his saxophone
style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the
kind of playing that most reasonably
objective listeners WOULD normally
quantify as being jazz. it's just that as jazz
or even as music in a general sense, with
these standards in mind, it is simply not up
to the level of playing that we historically
associate with professional improvising
musicians. so, lately i have been
advocating that we go ahead and just
include it under the word jazz - since pretty
much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of
the jazz community does anyway - and let
the chips fall where they may.

and after all, why he should be judged by
any other standard, why he should be
exempt from that that all other serious
musicians on his instrument are judged by
if they attempt to use their abilities in an
improvisational context playing with a
rhythm section as he does? he SHOULD
be compared to john coltrane or wayne
shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack
thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and
his success (or lack thereof) at finding a
way to deploy that instrument in an
ensemble in order to accurately gauge his
abilities and put them in the context of his
instrument's legacy and potential.

as a composer of even eighth note based
music, he SHOULD be compared to herbie
hancock, horace silver or even grover
washington. suffice it to say, on all above
counts, at this point in his development, he
wouldn't fare well.

but, like i said at the top, this relatively
benign view was all "until recently".

not long ago, kenny g put out a recording
where he overdubbed himself on top of a
30+ year old louis armstrong record, the
track "what a wonderful world". with this
single move, kenny g became one of the
few people on earth i can say that i really
can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible
arrogance to even consider such a thing,
and as a musician, for presuming to share
the stage with the single most important
figure in our music.

this type of musical necrophilia - the
technique of overdubbing on the preexisting
tracks of already dead performers - was
weird when natalie cole did it with her dad
on "unforgettable" a few years ago, but it
was her dad. when tony bennett did it with
billie holiday it was bizarre, but we are
talking about two of the greatest singers of
the 20th century who were on roughly the
same level of artistic accomplishment.
when larry coryell presumed to overdub
himself on top of a wes montgomery track, i
lost a lot of the respect that i ever had for
him - and i have to seriously question the
fact that i did have respect for someone
who could turn out to have have such
unbelievably bad taste and be that
disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.

but when kenny g decided that it was
appropriate for him to defile the music of the
man who is probably the greatest jazz
musician that has ever lived by spewing his
lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune,
noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all
over one of the great louis's tracks (even
one of his lesser ones), he did something
that i would not have imagined possible. he,
in one move, through his unbelievably
pretentious and calloused musical decision
to embark on this most cynical of musical
paths, shit all over the graves of all the
musicians past and present who have
risked their lives by going out there on the
road for years and years developing their
own music inspired by the standards of
grace that louis armstrong brought to every
single note he played over an amazing
lifetime as a musician. by disrespecting
louis, his legacy and by default, everyone
who has ever tried to do something positive
with improvised music and what it can be,
kenny g has created a new low point in
modern culture - something that we all
should be totally embarrassed about - and
afraid of. we ignore this, "let it slide", at our
own peril.

his callous disregard for the larger issues of
what this crass gesture implies is
exacerbated by the fact that the only
reason he possibly have for doing
something this inherently wrong (on both
human and musical terms) was for the
record sales and the money it would bring.

since that record came out - in protest, as
insigificant as it may be, i encourage
everyone to boycott kenny g recordings,
concerts and anything he is associated
with. if asked about kenny g, i will diss him
and his music with the same passion that
is in evidence in this little essay.

normally, i feel that musicians all have a
hard enough time, regardless of their level,
just trying to play good and don't really
benefit from public criticism, particularly
from their fellow players. but, this is
different.

there ARE some things that are sacred -
and amongst any musician that has ever
attempted to address jazz at even the most
basic of levels, louis armstrong and his
music is hallowed ground. to ignore this
trespass is to agree that NOTHING any
musician has attempted to do with their life
in music has any intrinsic value - and i
refuse to do that. (i am also amazed that
there HASN'T already been an outcry
against this among music critics - where
ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!- , magazines,
etc.). everything i said here is exactly the
same as what i would say to gorelick if i
ever saw him in person. and if i ever DO see
him anywhere, at any function - he WILL
get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar
wrapped around his head.)

NOTE: this post is partially in response to
the comments that people have made
regarding a short video interview excerpt
with me that was posted on the internet
taken from a tv show for young people (kind
of like MTV) in poland where i was asked to
address 8 to 11 year old kids on terms that
they could understand about jazz.

while enthusiastically describing the virtues
of this great area of music, i was
encouraging the kids to find and listen to
some of the greats in the music and not to
get confused by the sometimes
overwhelming volume of music that falls
under the jazz umbrella. i went on to say
that i think that for instance, "kenny g plays
the dumbest music on the planet" -
something that all 8 to 11 year kids on the
planet already intrinsically know, as anyone
who has ever spent any time around kids
that age could confirm - so it gave us some
common ground for the rest of the
discussion. (ADDENDUM: the only thing
wrong with the statement that i made was
that i did not include the rest of the known
universe.)

the fact that this clip was released so far
out of the context that it was delivered in is
a drag, but it is now done. (it's unauthorized
release out of context like that is
symptomatic of the new electronically
interconnected culture that we now live in -
where pretty much anything anyone
anywhere has ever said or done has the
potential to become common public
property at any time.) i was surprised by
the polish people putting this clip up so far
away from the use that it was intended
* really just for the attention - with no

explanation of the show it was made for -
they (the polish people in general) used to
be so hip and would have been unlikely
candidates to do something like that before,
but i guess everything is changing there like
it is everywhere else.

the only other thing that surprised me in the
aftermath of the release of this little
interview is that ANYONE would be even a
little bit surprised that i would say such a
thing, given the reality of mr. g's music. this
makes me want to go practice about 10
times harder, because that suggests to me
that i am not getting my own musical
message across clearly enough - which to
me, in every single way and intention is
diametrically opposed to what Kenny G
seems to be after.

Roger Garrett
Professor of Clarinet
Director, Concert Band and Symphonic Winds
Advisor, Recording Studio
Illinois Wesleyan University
School of Music
Bloomington, IL 61702-2900
(309) 556-3268

"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me,
this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very
best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until
the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't
amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10 angels swearing I
was right would make no difference."
-Abraham Lincoln

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