Smooth Jazz can be good sometimes

Nice jam! Jazz isn't necessarily my top music style, but I like listening to it at moderate to low volume while I work as a background. It makes me calm and productive

 

"Smooth Jazz can be good sometimes"

Good to know. I would never have known...

(Thinking of unknown artists as Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, Spyro Gyra, The Yellowjackets, etc. )

;-)

 

a little too neurotic to be smooth jazz for me man . Smooth jazz leaves you feeling peaceful. Easy to get along with. Wanting to go home and dance with your wife around the coffee table

 

I was once having a chat with Rick Derringer's long time bassist, Charlie Torres before a show one night. I was surprised to learn the band has 3 distinct shows, and you must specify which show you want when booking the band: the Rick Derringer rock show which includes all the classics, the smooth jazz show, or the born-again Christian show. I thought that was an interesting business model, but increases your audience potential quite a bit.

 

Smooth jazz--cannot stand the stuff. It's got no narrative, no range: it's always telling the same story over and over and it's not really a very interesting good story. It's the Bob Ross of jazz.

 

Smooth Jazz is hard to describe. Some stuff is just instrumental pop but other stuff is very musically interesting. Ive been enjoying 'Galia Social', not sure how to classify them, but they are monster players.
Their song 'Rise' is very chill and may be considered smooth jazz. I couldn't find a video of it. Here is another tune, it is a bit heavier. more in the realm of fusion.

 

I'm reading a book about the Chitlin Circuit and am reading about all kinds of schemes and practices employed by promoters and their networks in the late 20s to the 60s, maybe later.

The business model of the entire enterprise was not to make anyone rich, but to provide constant money to everyone.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393342948/?tag=tdpri-20

 

Larry, that's fascinating. Link?

We spend a lot of time on TDPRI talking about spending money.

Is YouTube the only way to make money in music in 2021? What are some interesting business models from the past that might work in the present, etc.

Oh, and smooth jazz isn't my bag, but I hear players who know what they're doing, they were paid, and the OP has good ears.

Give me them 32 bars any day.

 

What do YOU say, Joe?

 

The clip in the OP is too repetitive and too electronica sounding for my taste. I much prefer the older "smooth jazz" artists like Spyro Gyra and Dave Grusin.

 

Was thinking about this yesterday while listening to our local straight-up college jazz station--it's weird how every major radio media market had a "smooth jazz" station, and then it just died seemingly overnight.

 

I have a love-hate relationship with smooth jazz. It sounds so good and professionally played but often it’s just missing that je-ne-sais-quoi for me that some of my favourite less smooth music has.

I’ve noticed a pattern in my life where if I’m actively seeking out smooth jazz, my mental health isn’t in a good place so there’s also that association. Right before the pandemic, I was in a George Benson phase amidst some work stress. That’s a tough connection to break.

Still and all, there is a time and place for smooth jazz. I like the track posted by the OP...I’d never heard that before.

 

Pass is definitely smooth, but not at all what I would call "smooth jazz". He is fluid, intricate and interesting; I never tire of listening to him play

 

Sounds more like Stereolab to me than smooth jazz. Interesting tune, tho

 

If smooth jazz fills a requirement in someone's listening life, then ok. It has a place and purpose. Smooth jazz, NTTAWWT.

But... I'm in the same camp as you. Sure, there are smooth jazz highlights, but so much of it sounds like formulaic product to me. Most popular radio music is formulaic product, but to me most smooth jazz sounds like just that, as well as being unchallenging musically. I could rant on, but won't.

In the Buffalo, NY area I can pick up the best FM jazz station I've ever heard and it's up in Toronto, Ontario, CA. It has a strong signal, superior audio with little compression, and a superb playlist of old and new jazz. They do not play a song, a lick, a note of smooth jazz. I like that.

"It's the Bob Ross of jazz." I sure love that.

 

That stuff is played by experts, no doubt, but it just reminds me of waiting in the dentist's office. And who likes that?

 

When it comes down to it isn't almost all popular music a blend of blues and jazz?

 

Very true. Also, malls, hold music, etc.

That being said, I was just on the phone with a pharmacy and digging the hold music a bit (I work in mental health and have called that pharmacy and heard that music many times so it has definitely grown on me). I began considering calling the pharmacy and just asking to be put on hold so I could groove to the hold music a little longer.