Kenny G

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KENNY G

Born: Kenny Gorelick; Seattle, Washington, 6 July 1956

Genre: Jazz, Easy Listening

Best-selling album since 1990: Breathless (1992)

Kenny G is the best-selling instrumentalist in recording history. His fans have snapped up some 70 million recordings since the release of his debut album, Kenny G (1982). He reached the peak of his popularity in the 1990s, selling more than 15 million copies of Breathless (1992) worldwide and more than 12 million in the United States. Though he was born and raised Jewish, Kenny G recorded the all-time best-selling Christmas album, Miracles: The Holiday Album (1995), which retailed 13 million copies. Playing the high-pitched soprano sax in a dependably mellow, sweet, midtempo manner, the slender, long-haired Kenny G was not the instigator of the enduring "smooth jazz" or "pop instrumental" genre, but he has established himself at the pinnacle of the form, with a legion of fans and imitators far outnumbering the vocal critics who decry his music as cloyingly sweet, banal, and invariably unimaginative.

Of his upbringing, Kenny G told an interviewer in 1997, "I was lucky; my family was fairly well off. I didn't need to have an after-school job when I was in high school. I could spend my time practicing, and by the time I was 21, 22 years old I was making enough through music to pay all my bills." A childhood saxophone student, he toured Europe with his Franklin High School band in 1974, and in 1976 worked his first professional job in Seattle with Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra. Kenny G studied accounting at the University of Washington and recorded with Cold, Bold & Together, a funk band that backed up visiting singing acts. Following graduation in 1979, he joined Jeff Lorber Fusion, led by one of the era's reigning electric keyboardists, and then, in 1981, signed a solo contract with Arista Records.

His first three albums—Kenny G (1981), G Force (1983), and Gravity (1985)—were commercially successful; the latter two attained platinum status. Duotones (1986), produced by Preston Glass and Narada Michael Walden, was Kenny G's breakthrough, selling more than 500,000, in part on the strength of the hit track "Song-bird." Silhouette (1988) and Kenny G Live (1989) proved that Kenny G's approach—easily played and digested melodic phrases, repeated with slight variation yet suffused with sentiment, over unobtrusive, often-synthesized backgrounds—had staying power. Kenny G was also in demand as a guest soloist with numerous R&B singers. His frequent touring included an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1987.

In 1990 the newly elected, saxophone-playing President Bill Clinton claimed Kenny G as his favorite jazz musician. Breathless (1992) was embraced by an international audience, though it was reviled by jazz aficionados as soporific schlock and was no better received by mainstream rock fans. The recording industry has not been generous in honoring him, either; he's won only one Grammy, in 1993, for Best Instrumental Composition for the track "Forever in Love." Nevertheless, Kenny G remains undaunted. Miracles: The Holiday Album (1994), the first of his three holiday albums, features Kenny G's renditions of seasonal staples, including "Winter Wonderland," "Silver Bells," "Away in a Manger," and "Brahms's Lullaby," with his personal stamp on each piece.

The Moment (1996), another multiplatinum recording, was produced by the soul artist Babyface using the elaborate process of studio overdubbing (as opposed to live-in-the-studio collaborations) through which all Kenny G's albums have been created. Babyface sings "Every Time I Close My Eyes," and the vocalist Toni Braxton, with whom Kenny G shared a tour bill in the mid-1990s, sings "That Somebody Was You." Notwithstanding the guest appearances by soul singers and occasional Latin rhythm accents, Kenny G's sound appeals largely to listeners who have little exposure to or taste for original music with venturesome qualities. His album Classics in the Key of G raises this point to a height of controversy; in this collection he covers beloved songs such as Sam Cooke's "You Send Me," with Michael Bolton providing the vocal, and "What a Wonderful World," the last recording by Louis Armstrong, into which Kenny G overdubs a saxophone solo.

Kenny G's contrivance of a posthumous duet with Armstrong, a major pioneer of the jazz trumpet and vocalization, was the crowning outrage for legions of serious music devotees. The guitarist Pat Metheny said, "Kenny G plays the dumbest music on the planet—something that all 8- to 11-year-[old] kids on the planet already intrinsically know." Asked on his website to express himself more fully, the characteristically mild-mannered Metheny accused Kenny G of "musical necrophilia" and stated, "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."

Such indictments do not concern Kenny G, who continues to record and tour, garnering high fees and unprecedented sales. Faith: A Holiday Album (1999) repeated the success of Miracles; it features "Eternal Light (A Chanukah Song)" and "Ave Maria." During celebrations of the millennium in January 2000, Kenny G had a U.S. Top 10 single with his version of "Auld Lang Syne." Paradise (2002) features Chante Moore singing "One More Time" and Brian McKnight singing "All the Way," two tracks that received considerable airplay on radio stations following Adult Contemporary, New Adult Contemporary, and Urban Adult Contemporary formats. Wishes: A Holiday Album (2002) features G's interpretations of "Joy to the World" and the medley "Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer/Frosty the Snowman."

The split decision on Kenny G's music persists. The hearty disdain of the relatively small community of serious musicians and critics and the adulation of a vast public raise the question: Can 70 million record and CD buyers be wrong?

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Breathless (Arista, 1992); Miracles: The Holiday Album (Arista, 1994); The Moment (Arista, 1996); Greatest Hits (Arista, 1997); Classics in the Key of G (Arista, 1999); Faith: A Holiday Album (Arista 1999); Paradise (Arista, 2002); Wishes: A Holiday Album (Arista 2002).