och menno - gibts das nicht auch in deutsch? kT

Beitrag von falk vom September 23. 2000 um 18:26:51:

Als Antwort zu: (Philosophie) Pat Metheny vs. Kenny G. geschrieben von bO²gie am September 22. 2000 um 17:29:39:

: Pat Metheny im Sommer 2000 auf seiner Homepage über Kenny G. (Text gefunden im LUP Board Line6):

: 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 key 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, played 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 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 insignificant 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.)

: Ich war nie ein großer Pat M. Freund, vieles war mir einfach zu Weichspülermäßig ... aber die klaren Worte über Kenny G haben mir doch ein zufriedenes Grinsen abgerungen ;)=)

: slide on ...
: bO²gie

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