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Orphen01 escribió:Perdón, pero yo es que cuando me mientan el smooth jazz siempre me imagino una peli porno.

dvdmanso escribió:Gracias a este hilo he conocido al gran Scott Ambush.

¡Gracias!

Marcus Miller escribió: in response to Questions on Smooth Jazz by Derek J. Molacek

In the late eighties, early nineties, some marketers at Broadcast Architecture (BA), a marketing consulting firm, identified that there was a big audience of working adults out there who would like some music to chill to after stressful work days, or even during stressful work days. The audience was between 25 and 55 and was reasonably well off financially. They had a lot of disposable income. The kind that advertisers like! This was a great audience to target.

BA put together a sample of relaxing instrumental music and played it to focus groups around the country.

It was basically instrumental music, pretty easy to digest - with some vocals thrown in from time to time. I'm not sure exactly what music was played - my guess is that it was music by people like Grover, Bob James, David Sanborn, Joe Sample, Spyro Gyra. At the time, these artists were considered 'contemporary jazz' artists who played a pretty wide range of music - but the sample music was only of the lighter material from these artists.

The audience responded well to the music that was played for them. The marketers asked them what they would call the music. The audience response the marketers liked the best was "Smooth Jazz".

That's how the format got it's name - the audience named it. This was not an audience that was very familiar with jazz. They just liked cool sounding music that they could put on during the drive home.

Smooth jazz started off as a mix of contempory jazz artists' lighter fare but eventually evolved into it's own genre. Initially the artists played were from an earlier generation of musicians who were creatively combining jazz with other other more recent or 'contempory' forms of music. Artists like Bob James, Dave Grusin, Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Spyro Gyra, David Sanborn, etc. Eventually new artists emerged who more completely represented what smooth jazz was to become. Guys like Kenny G, Boney James, Brian Culbertson, etc. These guys typically grew up on the music of the older contempory jazz musicians but were really attracted more by the 'contemporary' aspect of the music than the 'jazz' aspect. They learned a bit of jazz but they used it more to spice up their pop intrumentals than as the meat of what they were doing. If you asked David Sanborn who his influence was, he'd say Hank Crawford and Charlie Parker. If you asked one of the new smooth saxophonists, they would very likely say Tower of Power and Sting.

This created a problem for the original contempory jazz artists who were now being replaced by the new smoothers. A&R people were now asking guys like Joe Sample, "Can you take out the guitar solo there? It's gonna throw the audience off.." Some of the contempo cats made concessions - others didn't. There wasn't as much of an issue with the newer guys because they naturally made music that fit in with what the marketers were looking for. Eventually a lot of the original contempory jazzers, the guys who supplied the original music for the smooth jazz format, were phased out.

I think the best way to describe smooth jazz now is as 'easy listening' for baby boomers. Their parents had muzak. There was no way baby boomers would go for that, muzak was corny. Baby boomers are the generation that grew up on Hendrix, Clapton, Beatles, Sly, etc. The baby boomers needed their chill out music to be much more hip. So their dentist office music has funky beats, soulful saxes, etc. But it serves the same function as muzak did for the previous generation. A lot of the songs are faithful remakes of popular songs from their youth (Pick Up The Pieces, Grazin in the Grass, What You Won't Do For Love, Layla (unplugged version). Cool oldie pop vocals from the seventies and eighties have become more and more a staple. The music is programmed so it doesn't demand your attention. It can easily exist in the background. Smooth jazz is probably the most played station in the business work place.

At this point, the jazz element is really a garnish on top of what is essentially pop instrumental music. The format name is smooth jazz but but the accent is on 'smooth'. You have to remember that it was named by an audience that doesn't know anything about jazz to begin with. Everybody wants to say they listen to jazz. It makes them feel cool. Everyone wants to like jazz, the problem is most people don't. Jazz is too demanding to listen to. Smooth jazz is the perfect phrase for baby boomers. It allows them to say they like jazz without really having to listen to it!

The problem is that because the name includes the word "jazz", it sets up certain expectations that aren't met. If it was called pop instrumental music, who would have a problem with it? No one would be any madder at Kenny G than they were at Herb Alpert in the sixties. Does anyone think that pop instrumentals shouldn't exist?? But calling it jazz brings up all sorts of 'issues'. That's when you hear folks saying, "They call it smooth jazz but I don't ever hear Sonny Rollins!" It doesn't help that the smooth jazzers are making a living and the guys who are playing closer to the jazz tradition are starving (or having to tour the world three times a year to pay their rent).

There's a large black audience for smooth jazz. Black people always love a smooth beat with some songs we recognize. I was at Wayman Tisdale's show the other night. In one show he played, "Keep On Runnin'" by the Gap Band, "No Woman No Cry" by Bob Marley, "Freak of the Week" by Funkadelic, "Get Up Stand Up" by Bob Marley, and "Can't Hide Love" by Earth Wind and Fire. Folks were eating it up, me too! At one point, Tis said, "Sorry, we ain't playing no jazz tonite but we got to get funky!" Tis doesn't consider himself a deep jazz player, he likes playing his funky tunes and turning his audience out!

That brings me to my last point. The guys who are successful at smooth jazz LOVE what they do. They love their music and are completely committed to it. I remember having a talk with Kenny G in the early eighties. He was upset because his producer wouldn't let Kenny record the music that he heard in his head. There was a sound that he wanted and he had to fight for the opportunity to make it. Once he did, his stuff took off. Tis loves what he does. Like I said, he doesn't have any illusions about being the next Jaco Pastorius, he's just doing his thing (a pretty cool thing, considering he played 13 years in the NBA then decided to try his hand at the music thing!). People can always tell when an artist is faking it. There are some artists who have short lived success watering down their music but it never lasts. They can't sustain it.

In the eighties, I produced and played bass for a lot of contemporary jazz and r&b artists, Sanborn, Grover, Bob James, Luther Vandross, Joe Sample, so a lot of smooth jazz program directors, who really respect the roots of smooth jazz, have a soft spot for me and will include my lighter songs in their playlist from time to time. But my music, in general is a little too much for most of the smooth stations.

I have my own style which came out of my own experiences which are very unique. I grew up with the Jamaica funk crew, played in the Saturday Night Live Band, played with Miles, played with Bryan Ferry, Grover, Billy Idol, Sanborn, Aretha. My music is a result of these experiences..As a result my music doesn't really fit into any format that well! They squeeze me in where they can and that's cool with me. I prefer to do my thing.

One guy said, "I love Marcus. I play his stuff at home all the time but his music's a little too distinctive for my format!"

That's the best compliment I good get..

M

Perrock escribió:

dvdmanso escribió:Gracias a este hilo he conocido al gran Scott Ambush.

¡Gracias!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DughsAW9 ... re=related

dvdmanso escribió:Gracias a este hilo he conocido al gran Scott Ambush.

¡Gracias!