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What song was the beginning of smooth jazz?


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I mean, a number of ballads by legit Fusion bands could qualify, "A Remark You Made" being an obvious example. However, in context, it's a purposeful break from the frenetic density of the rest of their work, which makes it different. Also, there are little things here and there that make you realize there's a lot more going on behind the curtain, you don't get that with solidly smooth jazz artists. But even so, maybe that example is a little too crunchy. It's super consonant and delicious to my ear, but maybe not to some.

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20 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

But if the question is what is the "first" song you find if you trace certain key elements or trends backward, and keep following the "chain of custody," where do you land? 

I like the chain of custody thought process.  It could easily lead back to an earlier point in time.

 

However, the  production aesthetic and sound of Smooth Jazz consists of electrified instruments and R&B beats.  IMO, that chain of custody started in the 1970s. 

 

The heavy dose of of high fructose corn syrup was added in the 1980s providing Smooth Jazz with its Nutrasweet, sugary, er, signature sound.  

 

No need to saddle any decade prior to the 1970s with spilling Domino. 🤣😎

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PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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3 hours ago, ProfD said:

I like the chain of custody thought process.  It could easily lead back to an earlier point in time.

 

However, the  production aesthetic and sound of Smooth Jazz consists of electrified instruments and R&B beats.  IMO, that chain of custody started in the 1970s. 

 

The heavy dose of of high fructose corn syrup was added in the 1980s providing Smooth Jazz with its Nutrasweet, sugary, er, signature sound.  

 

No need to saddle any decade prior to the 1970s with spilling Domino. 🤣😎

Sure thing, and the genre was named after electrified instruments defined the sound. So if that's what we choose as the dividing line, we can safely rule out anything that came before that was the standard. I do have the sound of Larry Carlton playing acoustic guitar over Knock on Wood making a counter argument in my head, I just can't remember if they explicitly marketed that as Smooth Jazz. 

But still, that lite electric jazz that became Diabetic Coma Music came from somewhere, and that's where at least my mind goes in trying to find a "first." Rock 'n roll had at least one non-electrified parent as well, and IMO it's fair game to mine western swing when looking for candidates for the "first" rock n roll song.  Just like it's fair to look to Jamaican toasting for hip-hop or gospel for (OG) R&B. By the time they "become" the genre, they've gone through lots of changes, but the lineage is still legit and fair game. 

The guys who came to rock n roll through jump blues might say that no country song created rock n roll, but from the "outside" it's pretty easy to see that it (partially) did.

In this case, the instrumentation is different, but it's simple to find the through line from sugary sound of Smooth Jazz to the music that was literally called "sweet jazz" in its time, particularly since the radio stations and audiences remained the same. It wasn't the only parent for sure, but I think it's hard to say it wasn't any of them.

 

Still, it all just depends on how far back you want your sugar to travel.

 

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I alway thought the early Smooth Jazz like the Windom Hill  "Wave" type music that was popular on radio and albums,  but they added a drum machine so it had a beat.   That morph into Funky Cocktail Party sound all the I'm too hip because I say so stuff. 

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28 minutes ago, Docbop said:

I alway thought the early Smooth Jazz like the Windom Hill  "Wave" type music that was popular on radio and albums,  but they added a drum machine so it had a beat.   That morph into Funky Cocktail Party sound all the I'm too hip because I say so stuff. 

I thought the marketing term for what Windham Hill produced was 'New Age'.  Those George Winston records and Yanni, etc.  But these as with anything these genre labels are fluid and defined by marketers.  Possibly coined to coincide with the 'New Age' spiritual movement. Windham Hill was cranking out stuff before that term came into vogue.  I also recall the 'Private Music' label had a bunch of 'New Age--y' music. Most notable for me was Eddie Jobson's 'Theme of Secrets' as I was a big fan.  That record is fine but not very related to his Zinc record.  

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I'll give an example. This song is straight up western swing. Yeah, the guitar is plugged in, but is not the "electric" guitar we mean when we talk about rock n roll. It's Western swing through and through, including pedal steel and lots of sweet country licks. 

Yet knowing where Bill Haley ended up a few years later, it's pretty hard not to hear this as a "first" rock n roll song (along with Ike Turner's "Rocket 88"). He says "rock" in the right place in the phrase, it's got the 12-bar structure, it's got guitar breaks--it's basically the beta-test for "Rock Around the Clock." Even though the sound is country and not what we eventually call rock n roll, it feels impossible to start any conversation about rock n roll without including this.
 

 

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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Thinking about how did smooth jazz get started... if you're looking at songs like Feels So Good, I'd go back to something like this:

 

 

Not that far removed, and served the same purpose for DJ's signing off at the top of the hour. And I think that had at least something to do with it initially - cats looking for airplay discovering that if they did instrumentals so bland they could be used as voiceovers for radio DJs... well that might work. 

 

Comparing the emergence of smooth jazz as a format to the emergence of rock - I'm not sure about that one. At it's beginning rock was passion often at the expense of proficiency, whereas smooth jazz was proficiency at the expense of passion.

 

But you guys can tear that argument apart if you want. I tried to avoid smooth jazz as much as possible 35-40 years ago. But I've had fun going through the examples in this thread  - for nostalgia primarily, but I gotta admit I've mellowed out a lot myself in the intervening years. 

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Just a grateful note that this community is a musicologist's paradise. The amount of knowledge and perspective being unlocked here is mind boggling. 👍

 

 

 

Watching, listening, learning ... :popcorn:

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16 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

This song is straight up western swing. Yeah, the guitar is plugged in, but is not the "electric" guitar we mean when we talk about rock n roll. It's Western swing through and through, including pedal steel and lots of sweet country licks. 

 

I'd call this more of a crossover between Western Swing and Rockabilly on it's way to Bill Haley and the Comets Rock 'n Roll.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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Back in the early to mid 80s, I was a big fan of what I considered to be "lite jazz fusion" music, listening to and going to concerts by artists like Jeff Lorber, Spyro Gyra, David Sanborn, Brecker Brothers, Lee Ritenour, Earl Klugh, and more than I can think of right now. I also had a "college best friend" at the time who played a "lite jazz fusion" radio show at Rutgers during that time; he would get backstage passes to jazz shows in NYC, and we would meet these musicians backstage after the show. It was a great and fun time.

 

Some 4 to 5 years later (probably about 1988/89), I noticed a NYC radio station starting to play this kind of music as their "new" format, calling this style of music "Smooth Jazz". The term seemed CRINGE to me at the time (still does). And the stuff they were playing seemed kind of watered down ("too smooth" for my tastes). I generally hated that radio format, and it ruined these earlier 80s memories that I had of this style of music. They basically ruined it for me.

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Here's a thesis that I'm sure can be easily refuted, but I'll put it out there anyway as a clay pigeon ready for splatter: was the fender rhodes as central (I want to say "instrumental" in the broader sense of that word) to what we in retrospect call smooth jazz as the electric guitar was to what we call rock?

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14 minutes ago, Adan said:

Here's a thesis that I'm sure can be easily refuted, but I'll put it out there anyway as a clay pigeon ready for splatter: was the fender rhodes as central (I want to say "instrumental" in the broader sense of that word) to what we in retrospect call smooth jazz as the electric guitar was to what we call rock?

Absolutely not.  The Rhodes was not instrumental to the Jazz equivalent of Muzak.🤣

 

IMO, saccharine guitar, synth and soprano saxophone were instrumental to Smooth Jazz. 😁

 

For that very reason, Maceo Parker is the sound I prefer to hear coming from a saxophone.😎

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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OT:  Every time I think about smooth jazz, I can't escape the image of SNL's Ladies' Man putting the moves on a hot-to-trot divorcee while cracking open a bottle of Courvoisier with some Kenny G playing in the background. 

 

This is not to say there wasn't some great musicianship in smooth jazz, but IMHO it's one of the most contrived, formulaic, and tacky genres of music out there.  Despite this, I certainly don't blame musicians like Kenny G for trying to make some coin playing it.  I spent 35 years whoring myself out as a geologist to the oil industry so who am I to pass judgement. 

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1 hour ago, synthizen2 said:

And the stuff they were playing seemed kind of watered down ("too smooth" for my tastes). I generally hated that radio format, and it ruined these earlier 80s memories that I had of this style of music. They basically ruined it for me.

As I mentioned, a company called Broadcast Architecture had strict "do's" and "dont's" regarding many of the musical elements of a smooth jazz track. Artists needed to adhere to these "rules" to get airplay. At live gigs, of course these performers could stretch out and show whether or not they had the goods. IMO, some did, others... 

 

9 minutes ago, HSS said:

I certainly don't blame excellent musicians like Kenny G

Pat Metheny might have a few things to say about that!

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Just by the timing of its release, I could blame the DX7 more than the Rhodes.

:idk:

 

1 hour ago, Adan said:

Here's a thesis that I'm sure can be easily refuted, but I'll put it out there anyway as a clay pigeon ready for splatter: was the fender rhodes as central (I want to say "instrumental" in the broader sense of that word) to what we in retrospect call smooth jazz as the electric guitar was to what we call rock?

51 minutes ago, ProfD said:

Absolutely not.  The Rhodes was not instrumental to the Jazz equivalent of Muzak.🤣

 

IMO, saccharine guitar, synth and soprano saxophone were instrumental to Smooth Jazz. 😁

 

For that very reason, Maceo Parker is the sound I prefer to hear coming from a saxophone.😎

 

 

 

 

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17 hours ago, Bill H. said:

Thinking about how did smooth jazz get started... if you're looking at songs like Feels So Good, I'd go back to something like this:

 

 

 

 

15 hours ago, 16251 said:

Well Grazing in the Grass reminded me this one from 1968. Still hip, so I guess it can't be smooth.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, insofar as "smooth jazz" is a maligned term, I will fight to the death to defend that these two classics are not smooth jazz.  We had a great forum poll ~5 years ago debating which of these two is our favorite.  Can't seem to find that thread on our new platform, but I remember we had much love for these two songs.

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Sergio Mendez been mentioned a lot and his Brazilian influenced Pop, but checkout his later album with Sergio Mendez and Brazil 77  specifically the album Primal Roots.     He put a lot more Brazil into that album and been a favorite of mine since it came out.   

 

 

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Going back a several posts, I have fond memories of WRVR; it was my gateway to jazz.  I was in high school and lived accross the street from the school so I would come home for lunch.  I played trumpet (very poorly) and was in love with the upper register of the trumpet.  All I had heard was Chicago, EW&F, and Crown Heights Affair.  I listened to R&B primarily and one day I was channel surfing and came accross this trumpet player playing the theme to Star Trek in a range much higher than I had heard before.  I went crazy and learned it was Maynard Ferguson and I was listening to WRVR.  I went out and bought every MF album I could find, which led to Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy, Clifford, etc.  I've been hooked since!  As an aside, I had a friend who's brother was a DJ there and describes the day a truck pulled up, removed all the jazz albums and replaced them with Country!  Very sad day.  

Back to the topic, I was (am) also very much into fusion as well.  I have a very arbitrary definition of Smooth jazz:  sounds like fusion but makes my teeth hurt and nose bleed.  They can be great musicians and the instrumentation may be the same as fusion, but listening causes physical pain.  I don't know how else to explain it.  Grover Wasington Jr and Spyro Gyra stand out in my mind as the beginning of Smooth.  Interestingly, I heard Jeff Lorber live at Toads Place in New Haven and Kenny G sounded great.  Then Songbird came out and I can't listen to him.  Different strokes...

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2 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

Pat Metheny might have a few things to say about that!

Have you ever heard Richard Thompson's 'I Agree With Pat Metheny'?  😂

 

 

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Or maybe we should blame MIDI <runs for cover>  :hider:

 

2 hours ago, jerrythek said:

Just by the timing of its release, I could blame the DX7 more than the Rhodes.

:idk:

 

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, ProfD said:

Absolutely not.  The Rhodes was not instrumental to the Jazz equivalent of Muzak.🤣

 

IMO, saccharine guitar, synth and soprano saxophone were instrumental to Smooth Jazz. 😁

 

For that very reason, Maceo Parker is the sound I prefer to hear coming from a saxophone.😎

 

3 hours ago, Adan said:

Here's a thesis that I'm sure can be easily refuted, but I'll put it out there anyway as a clay pigeon ready for splatter: was the fender rhodes as central (I want to say "instrumental" in the broader sense of that word) to what we in retrospect call smooth jazz as the electric guitar was to what we call rock?

 

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11 minutes ago, jerrythek said:

Just by the timing of its release, I could blame the DX7 more than the Rhodes.

 

Or maybe we should blame MIDI <runs for cover>  :hider:

MIDI did kill Funk and R&B bands but it gets a pass in this thread.

 

While the DX7 was definitely the powdered sugar on the Smooth Jazz funnel cake, during the 1980s, bands and musicians were responsible for the content.  Sequencers and drum machines didn't heavily infiltrate the music until the 1990s through 2000s.

 

Still, most Smooth Jazz artists perform with live bands which provided musicians with work.  They didn't go down the road of using MIDI sequencers and pre-recorded tracks on DAT tapes and CDs like artists in other styles of music. 😎

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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15 minutes ago, ProfD said:

Still, most Smooth Jazz artists perform with live bands which provided musicians with work.

There are still some "smooth jazz" festivals happening, but due to budgetary constraints you'll oftentimes see a single band or rhythm section backing up several "stars"... these folks at the low-to-mid level of that scene can't afford to bring their own bands to their gigs – if they even have their own bands.

 

As far as midi & dx7s and smooth jazz, those tools were getting used in every genre starting in the 1980s. I would say the drum machine had a lot more impact on smooth jazz tracks than DX7s, but that's my own personal observation/opinion.

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When I was into The Rippingtons, that band was mostly just Russ Freeman and Steve Reid - Freeman programming sequencers, and drum machines, then overdubbing guitar parts; and Reid playing live percussion.  Other players would be brought in overdub their parts on select tracks.  There were a couple of albums with live bass on a track or two and the rest were bass synth.  I was also a fan of Depeche Mode, Yaz, etc. so I actually enjoyed the sequencer driven stuff.   

 

Live, though, the Rippingtons were a whole nuther beast.  Freeman and Reid always brought a full band with them, so the energy level was much higher live.  

 

 

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