Kenneth Gorelick\u2014best known to the world as Kenny G\u2014did not invent new age music or smooth jazz. He was, however, the best-known face for the genre, and as such has taken most of the slings and arrows hurled against it (and, in turn, against him).<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to lie: I\u2019m not the biggest fan in the world of new age music, having grown up with it being played constantly by my mother on WNUA-FM in Chicago. But, perhaps leopards could indeed change their spots\u2014and that\u2019s how I approached reviewing Gorelick\u2019s self-titled debut album\u2014with an open mind. (One can, however, understand why the cover art changed over the years; the original 1982 cover almost looks like Slim Goodbody playing saxophone.)<\/p>\n
If one is completely honest, you initially realize that this style of music was being played long before Gorelick\u2019s debut effort. Al Jarreau certainly was creating vocal versions of light jazz, especially with the song \u201cMornin\u2019.\u201d George Benson might have danced on the fringes of it, being more of a straight jazz artist dipping his toes into popular music. And let\u2019s not forget the chart success Chuck Mangione had in the \u201970s with Feels So Good<\/i>. So, Gorelick really doesn\u2019t deserve all of the hatred some of us \u2013and I freely admit I\u2019m in that group\u2014have dumped on him over the decades.<\/p>\n
But the nine songs presented on this album don\u2019t really do anything to help him either stand out in the musical world or advance his name. They\u2019re not great, but they\u2019re not bad<\/i> (though I did think his cover of Joe Zawinul\u2019s \u201cMercy Mercy Me\u201d left a lot to be desired). They\u2019re simply there, evoking precious little emotion from the listener.<\/p>\n
That, in and of itself, is the biggest failure of Kenny G<\/i>\u2014namely, the songs are so homogenized that they\u2019re difficult to tell apart. Sure, you recognize the shell of an Eagles song in his cover of \u201cI Can\u2019t Tell You Why\u201d (which, in truth, isn\u2019t a bad version), or you know the one song featuring Greg Walker on vocals in \u201cHere We Are.\u201d But when it comes time to recognizing differences between tracks like \u201cThe Shuffle,\u201d \u201cFind A Way\u201d or \u201cTell Me\u201d? It\u2019s difficult.<\/p>\n
Look, I went into this project fully expecting to hate Kenny G<\/i>… but, the thing is, I don\u2019t. I also can\u2019t say I like it. If anything, I\u2019m disappointed in it. Precious little on this disc inspires my soul or lives on in my brain long after the disc has stopped spinning, like good music should do. Perhaps this was simply a tentative first step from Gorelick, and other albums later in his career did capture even a small sample of that spark.<\/p>\n
Kenny G<\/i> is not a horrible album, but unless you\u2019re a diehard fan of the new age\/smooth jazz genre, it could well be the musical equivalent of Chinese food. Thirty minutes after you\u2019ve finished listening to the disc, you\u2019ll be wanting to hear some more inspiring music. Would I listen to this one again? Surprisingly, yes… but mostly if I needed something playing in the background. It is a product of its environment; I\u2019ll leave that up to the individual listener to determine whether or not this is a good thing.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[11130],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-47272","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kenny-g","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47272"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}