Why jazz purists and other people say smooth jazz is fake and all that, when it's actually great music?

Question

You actually hear music and tones and melodies. That's beautiful. You hear actual awesome bass. you hear drums with fill ins and complex patterns. you hear saxophone. you hear awesome piano and piano solos. you hear flute and many other instruments.

What's wrong with it? nothing! So why Jazz purists and other people say it's fake music and keep cursing at it.

Whocares if it's not improvisation....There have been many awesome vocal songs which are not improvised. And by the way, i don't know where you're living but names gain different meanings as years go by. So just because it's not your 1950's jazz, doesn't mean it's not jazz. It's 2007 jazz.

Answer 1

Who cares what anybody else thinks? To each their own. It's called taste. Nobody has to agree with you for your opinion to be valid.

Answer 2

The argument over what jazz is has gone on since the beginning. Jazz has gone off in so many different directions it's hard to draw a boundary around it. But I think most people would agree that there has to be some element of surprise and discovery to the music for it to be considered jazz - if it's so smooth that you needn't bother to listen closely, it's some variety of "easy listening".

Smooth jazz is more a radio format than an actual genre. Some of the artists cross over into mainstream jazz; others are just playing easy listening music over a shuffle beat drum loop. When fans of real jazz hear the latter described as "jazz:", their reaction is generally somewhere between bafflement and despair over the fall of Western civilization.

Tastes differ, and no matter what you like you can always find someone who'll tell you it's stupid. If the music moves you, enjoy it and don't worry about what other people think of it.

Answer 3

It is because there is no innovation in it. Any solos are completely fitting chords and not experimenting in any way. Yes, it is beautiful, but so is classical music. Yet anyone that does anything that sounds like classical music is just doing what has already been done. Music as an art form has to continue evolving and changing, and if jazz just keeps doing the same thing over and over, it dies. That is why new music that is not in the classical style is always being created, and why there are some jazz artists out there creating new styles of jazz to continually keep the style alive.
After all, if painters decided to just do the same thing as before, would we have things like Picasso, Renoir, and even (God forbid) Andy Warhol? No, we'd all be stuck with doing the same thing as Da Vinci and Michealangelo, which are fine, beautiful works, but many more different ideas have been done since then.

Answer 4

How is it 2007 jazz, when jazz from 1950 is still being played the same way now? That doesn't make any sense claiming it's "2007 jazz."

The reason jazz purists get so pissed off is because of people like Kenny G, who take a track recorded by one of the greatest jazzers of all time- Louie Armstrong- and then record himself over it. And then he has the balls to put his name AHEAD of Louies on the credits track.



Smooth jazz is not jazz. It is more pop/R&B than it is jazz. If you were to show this music to anyone like John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Bill Evans, they would shut it down immediately.

It doesn't have the same harmonic foundation either. Leonard Bernstein was 1000 times more jazzy than any of those smooth jazz folk.

Answer 5

Who cares?
Music is personal, if a song speaks to you and strikes a nerve (in a good way), its a good song. So what if its "pure" jazz or if its not. I think a lot of purist believe (and probably rightly so) that a lot of smooth jazz is too "simple", not complex enough, not challenging, and too similar. And they may have a point, but I say, (to quote a Miles tune)...... "So What". If jazz is big enough to encompass Frank Sinatra to Sun Ra, I figure there's room Kenny G in there somewhere.

My only problem with smooth jazz radio is that it includes far too many other genres (pop, rock, soul, r&b, folk, and even disco) to label it as "smooth" or "jazz". Instead, they should just call it "Crusin' Music".

Answer 6

You are certainly entitled to your opinion and your tastes. Nobody can tell you what to like and dislike.

I think that this kind of conflict exists in all genres of music. For example, a rock-n-roll purist dislikes pop music, like Backstreet Boys, Brittney Whats-Her-Name for example. Blues purists dislike Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepard, Opera purists dislike Andrew Lloyd-Webber, and so on.

What you are describing is discernable taste. Those who have played and/or studied these genres for a long time tend to dismiss the commercialized flavors of the music. I am very much the same, as I don't believe that music should be created for commercial venture or gain, but rather as an art form.

In your example, your cite some valid points about some of the music but unfortunately, much of 'smooth jazz' is very contrived and lacks the basic substance and emotion of the musical art itself. Vamps are often repeated ad nauseum and arrangements are sickeningly sweet. Funny thing, I'll bet you would get the same opinion from some of these 'smooth jazz' performers. But, they are in it for a living and are often forced to play what is popular to sell records.

If you really want to blame someone, look to the recording industry and music video giants - they have methodically destroyed the art form and forced this commercialized drivel down our throats for decades!

Answer 7

Smooth jazz is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, therefore it has to be as bland and homogenous as possible. Jazz purists as a whole feel that record labels (the ones not devoted to jazz) are destroying the public's view of jazz by watering it down. The average non-jazz fan is most likely to associate elevator muzak with jazz and say that they hate jazz solely based on that experience.
As for all other jazz styles being classified as "1950's jazz", I think you might want to check out Dixieland Jazz (1920's), Big Band/Swing(1930's and 40's), Hard Bop (early 60's), Free Jazz(mid-60's), and Fusion/Funk(late 60's to late 70's).

Answer 8

i dont know if im a purist or not. im hearing you about hearing the individual players and instruments. like recently, we've heard wynton marsalis, and he plays a pure and beautiful tone. it sounds amazing!
i would say i might be a jazz purist, but then i would remember that jazz purists in the 60s thought that miles davis and (especially) john coltrane were AWFUL. "a love supreme" was terrible according to a lot of jazz writers, and when miles went into fusion, they all went crazy. now, in 2007, those are all landmark records.
hell, i think, if you like it, its GOOD! if you look back at early miles davis, he was smooth (ok 60 years ago). so why isnt it good now? i dunno. personally, "smooth jazz" isnt my favourite music, but the hell if im gonna say its bad. you explained in your question why you like it, and thats good enough for me, man. music is music, and jazz is jazz, and if it makes someone smile and lifts up their day, its doing its job. charlie parker in the 50s, coltrane and miles in the 60s, anything after that...if it makes people happy, its doing what its supposed to do. 2007, listen to what makes you happy!

Answer 9

I think that smooth "jazz" is not jazz because there is no adventure in the music.

I am not a purist, I particularly like the mid 1960's Blue Note records, (Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers). These guys broke the mold. They could have had steady high paying gigs, but exploring new ways of approaching music was their passion. It was new, adventurous and very risky. thy knew that their audience would be less than if they stayed pure, but they did what was right for them. That is what jazz is to me.

Smooth "jazz" is so easy to listen to, its all about giving the people a chance to say they like "jazz". Its safe, boring, and unadventurous, NOT like the jazz I know. The motivation of the smooth jazz players is to please the audience first. Its pop jazz, not for the musicians themselves.$$$$$$$

Kenny G. and Eric Dolphy share nothing.

PS-I'm not saying you shouldn't like smooth "jazz", but I am saying it is blasphemous to put smooth players in the same category as the real jazz masters who innovated and constantly reshaped the way jazz was played.

Answer 10

I love Jazz and every spectrum of it.Jazz purist dont understand that straight ahead jazz and jazz from the 30-50 era is not what most people of today listen to because they don't understand it, its to complex for them, but for those who do understand it there is no reason to down smooth jazz because thats what 65% of people want to hear it is what is selling take from my friend kenny G he is rich today because he plays what the people want to hear not what he wants ,you hard core straight ahead jazz lovers have to understand thats what people want to hear not what you want to play because they are the ones paying to hear you, for example I asked my long time budy Kenny G why he stop playing jazz and he said "I really never stop playing jazz because there is a part of jazz in almost every type of music today" and he said "smooth jazz developed from the new styles of music today because they ones who developed it were influenced by the different styles like fusion jazz was started by rock and jazz enthusiast ", I also asked him why did people say that he did not play real jazz, and he said "they can say all they want but guess who is cashing the checks me". I play smooth jazz I also play fusion jazz and staright ahead jazz but my money maker is smooth jazz because thats is what I'm asked to play by the people who book me for events, so keep thit in mind straight ahead lovers that limiting your self to just one form of jazz will end your career as a musician take it from some one who has just made it into the music industry as a recording artist produced by ARTizen and Peak-records.

Answer 11

i hate it. it's boring and uninteresting, there's nothing unexpected about it, it's soft and easy and not jarring. it's supposed to be, but that's boring as hell.

you can hear good musicians, but the music itself is uninspired. i guess that's the point, it doesn't move me emotionally, and that's the point of music.

to each her own, if you enjoy it, that's wonderful, there's room for everything. but i wouldn't call it jazz. there is real 2007 jazz, but it's not that easy listening stuff. jazz has changed since the 50's, but it's still around.

i don't call it jazz because there is such a thing as real jazz. i wouldn't call britney spears rock, and i wouldn't call ozzy osbourne country, and i wouldn't call AC/DC folk music.
music is music, but in can be helpful to distinguish between genres.

as abraham lincoln said, if you call a dog's tail a leg, it still only has 4 legs, because you can call it a leg but it's still a tail.
it's not meant to be a putdown, just a musical distinction. smooth jazz or whatever is great for what it is, but it ain't jazz.

maybe it needs a better name.