Sunday, February 22, 2009

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?

4 comments:

  1. With great respect Pitwosky, Kool Finkel's keys make my ears bleed. You dig? With slightly less respect, do you really know what you are talking about? Sanborn is to smooth Jazz what death metal is to Peter Paul and Mary.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have to agree with the other Anoymous. when I was in Smooth Jazz School, we used to call Sanborn "the dick," not because of his personality but because he was in and out of smooth jazz, in and out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I loved Night Music. Some great stuff on that show and Sanborn is a gent for putting it together. But why did he always have to play with the musical artists he had on the show? Always brought them down....he should stick to his own stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Where do we stand on early George Benson?

    Because late GB is decidedly smooth as yacht rock, but early GB has too much grit for my taste. Can he be forgiven for his shameful, non puffy shirt years?

    ReplyDelete