Kenny G at 70: Why Is He Still So Controversial?

Today is Kenny G’s 70th birthday and I’ve been listening to his music and thinking about Mr. Kenneth Gorelick.

A few months ago, user WD-40Drinker posed this on the r/Jazz subreddit:

“I’m not too far into the jazz world, in my freshman year of college right now, but I keep noticing that people really just despise Kenny G for some reason. I know people say his music “isn’t jazz” or “all his songs sound the same” when HE chose to take a different path in life. I don’t think it makes that much sense to hate on someone just because of the genre they decided to go into. For example, she probably could, but we don’t make fun of Taylor Swift for not singing opera, so why does it magically apply to Kenny G? My assumption is that too many jazz people are jazz snarks that love to gatekeep their music.”

This, of course, drummed up a good discussion. If you want to spark a passionate conversation about jazz, you don’t bring up politics or religion. You bring up Kenny G. On one hand, he is the undisputed juggernaut of instrumental music: over 75 million records sold globally, making him the best-selling instrumentalist of our time. On the other hand, he has spent decades serving as the ultimate lightning rod for critical disdain and elitist fury.

Why the hate? I’m trying to figure this out. I won’t talk about musicianship as I’m not a professional musician so that’s not my lane.

The comments in the thread were wide-ranging and mostly thoughtful. There was a lot of disdain for his poor and ill-advised “duet” with the deceased Louis Armstrong on “What a Wonderful World.” I can understand that. Pat Metheny has a few thoughts on it, famously calling the overdub “musical necrophilia” and accusing Kenny G of violating the integrity of Louis Armstrong’s original performance.

But to actively hate Kenny G? It all has to do with the label “jazz.”

When veteran jazz journalist Ted Panken sat down with him for a candid interview, he asked Kenny G directly if he considers himself a jazz musician. Kenny didn’t shy away from the label; instead, he redefined it on his own terms:

“Well, personally, I do think of myself as a jazz musician. But I grew up with the word “jazz”…to me, it meant instrumental and it meant improvisation. It really doesn’t matter the style. I don’t play the traditional Charlie Parker songs. But I do improvise and I do create with my instrument, and that to me is jazz. But there are people who use the word ‘jazz’ only in a traditional sense, and they would be offended by that, and that’s fine.”

So, to him,  it’s a matter of how you define “jazz.”

The most upvoted comment on the thread dismantled the Taylor Swift example with this analogy: “Imagine if Taylor Swift sang about a ‘spicy meatball’ in an Italian accent and then the world decided it was opera.”

Another user expanded on this, pointing out that Taylor Swift fans don’t claim she’s a great opera singer, and the general public doesn’t look at her as the definition of opera. But with Kenny G, the casual public does look at him as the face of jazz.

“Kenny G” became a gateway that accidentally locked people out. Because record labels and the media stamped “Jazz” all over his smooth instrumental pop, a lot of casual listeners decided, “Well, if Kenny G is jazz, and I find this boring, then I must hate all jazz.” The community resents that his dominance actively turned potential fans away from exploring the broader genre.

But Kenny G isn’t himself to blame for this gateway. As pointed out, it’s the record labels and media who labeled the music. In the 2021 HBO Music Box documentary, Listening to Kenny G, it reveals the term “Smooth Jazz” was birthed out of radio industry focus groups in the late 1980s. Record labels and programmers needed a marketable bucket to package artists like Kenny G, Sade, and George Benson to advertisers.

In the thread, a few voices popped up to say that by all accounts from people who have met him, Kenny G is a genuinely nice guy and an incredible scratch golfer. It’s just the industry branding that turned him into a villain.

The hate doesn’t seem to be directed at the artist himself (except for agreeing to that Louis Armstrong overdub). It’s more toward his music and what many jazz fans feel it came to represent.

Personally, I don’t like his music. I like his playing. I respect that he often writes his own songs. I don’t buy his records. And, to be very honest, I’m more than a little resentful that he got the success when there are many other musicians who play the same “smooth jazz” style that I feel are better at what he does.

That’s not his fault, though. He happened to be in the right place at the right time and had the right promotion with “Songbird.” I can’t begrudge him for that. That breakthrough found him a huge audience and helped launch one of the most successful careers in instrumental music history.

You can dislike his music. Don’t belittle or begrudge those who do. There’s too many people yucking others’ yum as it is.

Branford Marsalis once told Jazziz: “When all these jazz guys get in a tizzy over Kenny G, they need to leave Kenny alone. He’s not stealing jazz. It’s not like some guy says, ‘You know, I used to listen to Miles, Trane and Ornette. And then I heard Kenny G, and I never put on another Miles record.’ It’s a completely different audience.”

Branford is right. The audience that made Kenny G a superstar isn’t necessarily the same audience debating jazz history and tradition. I don’t hate Kenny G. I don’t bash him. I just don’t particularly enjoy his music and when I’m asked about the genre, I point them in a different direction. No harm.