I forgot to include the essay by Pat!!! Here it is.


This interview originally appeared on a Pat Metheny site, and was
subsequently withdrawn when Kenny G fans complained.



The following are Pat Metheny's comments:

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 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, play 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 improvisers 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 pre-existing 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 could
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 Gorlick 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).