Smooth jazz | |
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Stylistic origins | |
Cultural origins | 1970s, United States |
Fusion genres | |
Crossover jazz | |
Other topics | |
List of musicians |
Smooth jazz is a term used to describe commercially oriented crossover jazz music. Although often described as a "genre", it is a debatable and highly controversial subject in jazz music circles. As a radio format, however, it is clear that smooth jazz became the successor to easy listening music on radio station programming in the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.
Smooth jazz may be thought of as commercially-oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 1980s, displacing the more venturesome jazz fusion from which it emerged. It avoids the improvisational "risk-taking" of jazz fusion, emphasizing melodic form, and much of the music was initially "a combination of jazz with easy-listening pop music and lightweight R&B." [1] [2]
During the mid-1970s in the United States, it was known as "smooth radio"; the genre was not termed "smooth jazz" until the 1980s. [3]
The term itself seems to have been birthed directly out of radio marketing efforts. In an industry focus group in the late 1980s, one participant coined the phrase "smooth jazz" - and it stuck. [4]
The popularity of smooth jazz as a radio format gradually declined in the early 2000s. [5]
The mid- to late-1970s included songs " Breezin'" as performed by another smooth jazz pioneer, guitarist George Benson in 1976, the instrumental composition " Feels So Good" by flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione, in 1978, " What You Won't Do for Love" by Bobby Caldwell along with his debut album was released the same year, jazz fusion group Spyro Gyra's instrumental " Morning Dance", released in 1979 [3] and in 1981, a collaboration between Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers was released as one of the most popular smooth jazz songs " Just the Two of Us". Beginning with Taking Off by alto saxophonist David Sanborn, Warner Bros. Records became a viable and popular record label for smooth jazz.[ citation needed]
Smooth jazz grew in popularity in the 1980s as Anita Baker, Sade, Al Jarreau, Grover Washington Jr. and Kenny G released multiple hit songs. [6]
The smooth jazz genre experienced a backlash exemplified by critical complaints about the "bland" sound of top-selling saxophonist Kenny G, whose popularity peaked with his 1992 album Breathless. [3]
Music reviewer George Graham argues that the "so-called 'smooth jazz' sound of people like Kenny G has none of the fire and creativity [7] that marked the best of the fusion scene during its heyday in the 1970s". [8]
Digby Fairweather, before the start of UK jazz station theJazz, denounced the change to a smooth jazz format on defunct radio station 102.2 Jazz FM; he stated that the owners GMG Radio were responsible for the "attempted rape and (fortunately abortive) re-definition of the music — is one that no true jazz lover within the boundaries of the M25 will ever find it possible to forget or forgive." [9]