Any smooth jazz fans out there?

Nobody likes to have their feelings hurt... it's not pleasant. Hearing weak, phony, auto pilot musical cliches that mimic jazz can also be pretty unpleasant. It's not hard to see how people who dig great under recognized musicians perceive a foul stench of injustice when subjected to smooth jazz popularity. Quite a few practitioners are highly skilled and manage to sneak in bits that aren't completely tepid or stale, but most recordings that get trotted out as smooth jazz are sort of like plastic flowers, a waste of petroleum and a poor, (or maybe even a crappy) representation of the real thing. If someone who likes Kenny G or the Yellowjackets says Mingus, Tim Berne or Monk sucks, most jazz freaks would probably just laugh w/no hurt feelings at all.

Since everything from the Mahavishnu Orchestra to the Rippingtons gets called "fusion" the term really has no descriptive value. At least w/ "smooth jazz" you can generally expect some really derivative melted velveeta and miracle whip sax tones and some phoned in time signatures. Still quite a few generic dime a dozen records don't neatly fit into a smooth jazz box... tons of great players like Dave Liebman, George Duke, Jan Garbarek and David Murray have made some sappy predictable records that aim for a piece of the lowest common denominator... somehow these guys and many others haven't often been branded as smooth jazzers. When the stuff starts getting called smooth there's often a Pat Boone covers Little Richard syndrome going on. So far on the thread I don't think anyone has said "Joe must like to eat cat turds and his mom must be his sister because he likes "smooth jazz". The personal attacks seem to be primarily coming from thin skinned posters who aren't as well informed as they perceive themselves to be. If someone wants to say Ken Vandermark just makes random noise and I say Bob Mintzer, (who might be one of the nicest people you'd ever meet) does not have a unique voice as a player and has not advanced the vocabulary of his instrument or any area of music one iota.... at least we're talking about music and not exchanging personal insults. Truth be known, there are probably hundreds of records that we both like a lot. If you still wanna call names though... knock yourself out, it's not going to bother me, (four letter words are way more accurate than completely off the mark words that end in -ist).

Hey Frogman,
Hope the weekend is good.
- Like most people I like tons of stuff that is the musical equivalent of junk food, and I never said Pdn's musical taste was crap.

-The previous post did not suggest that one needs to be an innovator to be a great player (or is crap because he or she is not breaking new ground)...if there's an elitist epithet being hurled here it doesn't stick. It's pretty obvious that good and great music can come from almost anywhere.

-Did not claim that David Murray, who rarely plays below his abilities (as he does on maybe Dark Star or Fo Deux Revue) has gone into unmapped territory ... he has worked further away from the mainstream than Mintzer on several Black Saint, Soul Note and Hat releases, (this is not a knock on either player).

-On most post 70's discs w/ Liebman it's rare to go 5 minutes without finding some sax playing that would fit right in on a Kenny G record... if you want some of his weakest discs try Energy of Change, Light'n Up Please, Daydream w/ Terumasa Hino and Plays the Music of Alec Wilder w/ Vic Juris. Liebman (and Juris) both have put out a pile of recordings that still seem fresh and deliver a real sense of discovery, (the Liebman Lookout Farm records are great and I wish ECM would would reissue them).

-Also did not claim to be well informed in any post, basically was just noting that posters who jumped on other members assumed they knew more about fellow Audiogoners than they actually did.

-Gotta agree, opinions about music are hugely subjective. It's great to have a light bulb go on that gets you into something you previously didn't like. At its core some of the best jazz or improvised music will grab, twist and combine just about anything for a buzz, a lot of times there's nothing purist or sophisticated about it. Very long story short... I usually prefer chunky jazz to smooth jazz.