Lookin' like Mr. G

We asked you for your Kenny G look-a-likes and you answered. This was sent in by Marlene in WIndsor, Ontario of her boyfriend, Ahmed. "Kenny G with a deviated septum" she says. We hear you.

Gentlemen, 

It is with great sadness that I share the following information with you.  From Jazz Times...

Two members of flugelhornist Chuck Mangione's band were among the 50 people killed on the plane that crashed into a Buffalo, New York house Thursday night.  Publicist Sanford Brokaw told the Associated Press that flutist Gerry Niewood (pictured) and guitarist Coleman Mellett were aboard, en route to a Mangione gig in Buffalo Philharmonic that has now been canceled.  Niewood recorded and performed with Mangione from 1968-76 and sporadically since the late '90's, and also recorded with a wide range of artists including Peggy Lee, Patti Austin , Simon and Garfunkel, Bob James, Lalo Schifrin and Grover Washington Jr.  Niewood also recorded a number of albums as a leader.  Mellett's recording credits include appearances on albums by the Sugarman Three and Eddie Landsberg.  He also released a solo album in 2007 called Natural High.  

Down and dirty flautist

SJ purists may scoff at the soul flute stylings of Jef Kearns, but I for one am overjoyed at the arrival of such a brash and boundary-smashing talent. Kearns brings a dash of urban chic to the comforts of our Smooth Jazz party. One listen to a pulse-racing cut like "Lavender" and you'll agree that this is one down-and-dirty Flautist! Kearns makes his silver stick sing in the best hot love SJ tradition.

Kearns' revolutionary style will surely ruffle some feathers out there, but so what? So what if he arrives in our scene from the distant teeming jungles of urban hip hop? So what if he's got a strange porkpie lid and strange n' youthful close-cropped haircut? So what if the cover art of his debut album "On the Level" is done in that grafitti-marker font heretofore utilized exclusively by blingy MCs? Be not afraid. As the saying goes, "Nu Jazz. No rules."

Yeah, Boy

Quentin E. Klopjaeger writes:

The other night, I was preparing a post about women in smooth jazz. There was too much pushing and shoving and pulling it out to show it, and I wanted to bring things down to a smoother level. I thought we could be in Japan with Keiko Matsui or in Dutch with Candy Dulfer or in heaven with Joyce Cooling. But my desire to skew female seems to have run into some G-male trouble. Everywhere I look, someone's posting about Kenny G. This guy looks like him. That guy looks nothing like him. The other guy's standing next to him on set. I have nothing against the man -- I love his music -- but the focus on him at the expense of other artists started to depress me, and not even a dose of his sublime "Havana" video, featuring Savion Glover, could lift my spirits.

No. I lied. They were lifted.

Dirty Sexy Kenny

My dear friend Bruce Gilbert had the good fortune of hiring Mr. Gorelick to play himself (of course) in an episode of Dirty Sexy Money. According to Bruce, in between takes Kenny would rip lightning from his Soprano golden peace pipe. Here he plays his own rendition of My Favorite Things for a pig playing a cop. Word on the set was that his version was better that 'Trane's. Way better.

Lookin' like Mr. G

Tweezer writes: Fact: Kenny G is God. Fact: Human beings are formed in God's image. (Genesis, 1:26) Question: Why did I have to join the Hair Club then? OK. Am over it. It is however irrefutable that many people around the world, from different backgrounds and of different creeds do resemble Mr. Kenneth Gorelick. And this is what I hope will be a new feature on our site, in which we celebrate him by celebrating them.

First up is Fabricio Coloccini. An Argentinian soccer star who is known for his rugged play and his luxurious locks in equal measure. If you or any one you know has been blessed by the Lord to look like Kenny G. be in touch and we will honor them here!!!

Up In Here

The Bishop here, comin' at ya from Las Vegas, Nevada via Tuscon, Arizona via Hinton, Oklahoma (Great Plains Correctional Facility).  SJF just put my life long love of smoove jazz back on the horse.  It is indeed the wind beneath my wings and as soon as I earn a trip back to the computer lab I'll be right here ruminating all over these velvet walls.  

They Call Him The Breeze

Bon Schmidt: Cut the Tweeze some slack and he takes a melancholy mile--if he wants to divert this flash convo towards the depths of the velvet lining he wears on his sleeve, I wish to restitch and get us back to nows-ville. And while you may not think of George Benson as NOW...one listen to Breezin' and you will remember every brick, every last brak, that he has laid to get us to NOW. Since my last postage all I have been doing is Breezin' through a career flash-cooked by Miles Davis in the 60s, eclipsed by his AM heights in the 70s, to his emergence on the Smooth Jazz charts when they began.
It is raining down on my house right now, but there is a globe of warmth around THIS GUY as Benson's guitar wing-swells blow the air that I need...the air that I breath...all over this black-lit living room. And dig those funky string-pad-laced key slaps. Oooh-we. Try to get the tune out of your head. Try to stop it from letting your body groove into the couch while it takes you up high. This ain't no waxish cover, Tweezer....this is the realio dealio.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE ALL HAD HAIR LIKE THE KEYS PLAYER? Good times, baby!
George Benson=Apollo Creed?

Uz veselību! Priekā!!!

Tweezer Cohen: There are a couple of things in life I simply hate: Child Molestation. Gil Grissom. And small mindedness. The posts thus far have violated at least one, arguably two of the Tweezerman's code. You guys can talk your talk. But the Smooth Jazz universe is as broad as the Andromeda galaxy and by sticking to the boundaries of this great country of ours, you guys are dooming yourself through your Smooth Jazz parochialism. When I say Jurmala, Latvia, your first response is probably the sanatorium at Pumpuri. But there is more to the town than that. Much more. In the form of one Olegs "Mr. Go" Grisins, they have one of the most talented masters of the Smooth Jazz staple. The cover version. His bass playing is kaleidoscopic. He can take a song as mediocre as Smooth Operator by the overrated wench, Sade and turn it into an anthemic statement of calmness in the storm. If Olegs had had the good fate to be born in Riga, Michigan instead of Riga, Riga, then, mark my words, we would have heard a lot more about this man. So guys. Spare me the big names. Pack your Samsonite and follow me on the road less travelled...

The gentleman

Randy "The Pitstain" Pitowsky here: Tweeze and Bon, I hope it goes without saying that I have nothing but respect for your passion for SJ. You've both made the world a far Smoother place, and for that I'm ever grateful.

But this talk of yours has got off to a Rough start. I love me my Chuck, my Herb and I give all due credit to my Spyro, but any real rap about this music we love so much has got to begin with a flip of the blazer collar to the true gentleman of the artform.

I speak, of course, of Mr. David Sanborn.

Dig this: "A Tear for Crystal" is prime Sanborn, glam and glistening and brimming with the sort of effortless alto runs that make session players weep and the ladies cream their slacks. Backed by Mo "Curly Cue" Mahogany on fretless and Kevin "Kool" Finkel on keys (dig that DX7), Sanborn lays down layer after layer of soft cashmere sounscape before pinching his fabric into a divine seam at the four-minute mark. Listening to this lovely track lo these many years since its 1984 release, it is as smooth as a fragrant breeze off the Marina after a sweet evening strolling the shopping promenade with your suntanned and sandalled lover, the two of you pleasantly buzzed on a chilled peach wine cooler (or heck, three!), heading back to your glass-bricked condo to make tender, uninhibited love... all the while floating on Sanborn's sloshing waterbed of melody, so sweet and smooth it's brutal, violent really, laying waste to all the punk-ass pretenders you cite as the true practitioners of SJ.

You feel me?

FOURPLAY: The Definers Of The Smooth

Bon Schmidt: QE & TC-Part of me wants to hear what you are saying and call it TRUE, but if you want to cuddle the grooves performed in the 70s and 80s, and herald the band that finally defined EVERYTHING that Smooth Jazz stands for, you cannot help but bawl the name of FOURPLAY through the lavender-walled night clubs we ALL call home. Bob James, Lee Ritenour, Nathan East and Harvey Mason. Giants. James—master of the light key touch who singed the sound of Smooth Jazz into the hearts and minds of America through the theme song of the situational comedy TAXI—Ritenour—child prodigy and maybe the most tasty session guitarist of the genre—Mason—who earlier laid the definitive rhythm on George Benson’s Breezin,’ which has become thee modern standard (we gotta get some of that in the mix!)--these guys are leaders and legends. Not a week goes by when I don’t take a small dalliance of time for my person, pour some Harvey’s into the goblet and chill back to Bali Run from Fourplay’s debut 1991 Warner Bros Record (but lets face it, alcohol is totally unneeded when confronted with such a exhilarating groove and splendid beat). While nothing can match the production of the classic LP, the following live video shows the Fab Four of the New Jazz coalescing in musical brotherhood with true celebration in their minds. Bravisimo muchacho.

PS-Miss you Lee, L-O-V-E you LARRY.
PPS-Nice try with Spyro, Tweeze...but everyone knows that the track to beat is Catching The Sun.

You Can't Tamper With the Temple of the Lorber

Notes from Quentin E. Klopjaeger:
I am trapped in an airport now, so I am calling this post in to my assistant, who will record it and send it out to be transcribed. I am writing in praise of the composer and keyboardist Jeff Lorber, a venerable practitioner of the genre who puts all these other pretenders to shame. Lorber (I cannot bear to call him by his first name, so great is my respect for the man) started in fusion, then came to smoothness just as smoothness came to him. While still leading Jeff Lorber Fusion, he hired a young saxophonist named Kenneth Gorelick, who would later prolong his career by shortening his name. Gorelick left for a solo career but Lorber has always been there, smoothing out jazz, whether in the studio or on the stage or in the musical bed of the Weather Channel. Is there another man alive with his clarity of vision? When he performs "Do It Again," he is making the phrase live in sound: he does it again and again and again.

Spyro-Gasm

Tweezer Cohen: Schmidster. Don't harsh my mellow. man. Rise came out in 1979. October to be exact. Seven aching months after Spyro Gyra dropped this smooth jazz aural orgazm. 38 second of foreplay. And then, pure, smooth, coitus eruptus. Listen and learn my man.

The Real KING OF THEM ALL

Bon Schmidt says: I think the Tweeze is walking on the sky-moon. Chuck was not even in diapers when the real king began....Herb Alpert...all the way....nothing better. Herbie wrote the book. This is the shit that birthed Chuck, Kenny, Boney.....name it. Take RISE, the 1979 #1 Hit (on the Pop charts, no less) from the album of the same name: listen to the determination...the reverb-ed blasts and the vocal slaps in the back. True groove with nothing to prove. All good and alllllll the best. Tweeze, I is schoolin' ya.

Feels So Good