Composer Reacts to Kenny G

Composer Samuel Andreyev reacts to Kenny G's album, New Standards.

00:00 Introduction
00:44 Expand your musical taste
01:41 Context
04:52 Emiline
07:08 Only You
10:46 Paris By Night
15:07 Rendezvous
17:28 Final Thoughts

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THE SAMUEL ANDREYEV PODCAST

Post-production: Marek Iwaszkiewicz

[samuel_andreyev]

If you love Kenny G's music, let me know in the comments!

[MelkorNoir]

This video was a hilarious change of pace from your usual content. I like the idea that different forms of music require different kinds of listening. Kenny G in this sense could viewed as a kind of anti-Webern. Webern's music is distant and requires close attention, but suggests a powerful expressive personality underneath. On the other hand, Kenny G's music is immediately accessible but there is truly no one home. It's almost as if the closer you listen to Kenny G, the further away from him you get. So perhaps the trick might be to listen to him in your "peripheral vision" rather than straight on.

[artiekushner]

Would love love love if you kept doing this as a format once a week or once a month. Take something more accessible/popular or even less academic, but still culturally significant and give your take on it. Appreciate the work.
I volunteer Floating Points' "Promises". It's a record by a house/edm composer in collaboration with Pharoah Sanders that's very near and dear to my heart.

[ex_orpheus]

Fun fact: he actually played on a jazz black metal fusion album recently - the song Merkurius Gilded from Spirit of Ecstasy by Imperial Triumphant.

[Hydrocorax]

I really enjoyed this little excursion. It's funny, you brought up all of the same points about Kenny G. that I used to find myself complaining about the painter Thomas Kinkade. It seems that a big secret of major success in the arts is to be rigorously inoffensive. (Incidentally, one of my favorite details in Komar & Melamid's "People's Choice" compositions: apparently whether or not people wanted philosophy in their music was a wash, because in the lyrics of both songs Wittgenstein was mentioned.)

[xXDimistreoXx]

Speaking as someone who is a big fan of Kenny G, I forgot what I was going to say.

[mharbaugh]

"It's like an object that doesn't cast a shadow."

🤣🤣🤣

[insight]

When I saw the title of this video, I laughed out loud. When I looked at the creator I almost fell out of my chair. Great video!

[barrysnyman]

I play sax and I'm not a virtuoso by any stretch of the imagination but for those who consider themselves the"Jazz-police" I always wonder if they know how hard it is to have that consistency in tone and sound and duration, especially on soprano which only comes by practicing 3 hours.

[attichatchsound-bobkowal]

The reason Pat Methany so viciously attacked Kenny G:
Mr. G released a "collaboration" of "What a Wonderful World" with the already long deceased Louie Armstrong.
That's kind of like Justin Bieber releasing an an auto-tuned duet with Maria Callas.

I actually saw KG at a Jazz club in LA, where session and touring musicians would gather to jam ("The Baked Potato")
This was in'79-80 when he was a sideman for the Jeff Lorber Group. This night the host band was led by LA session sax veteran, Dave Boroff.
Much of the night, there were friendly competitive solo exchanges, between Dave, Kenny and a 3rd player.
In this context, KG's relative limitations were especially obvious.
ALL THAT SAID - I never begrudge anyone their success. He clearly found a niche and brought his fans great pleasure.

[hb]

Genius viral marketing by Kenny G's team here. I f***ing hate his music but after a couple of minutes watching you I couldn't help but listen to it 🤣

[annode]

"Antiseptic" I could speak about KG's music for an hour and I don't think I'd come up with such a perfect description.

[insight]

the tension is derived from the conspicuous lack of it. That's possible the most avante-garde, good faith take on kenny g I can conceive of.

[bitnev]

And yes! — this feels like a birthday of a genuine popular format. Hope you keep it up, really liked it.

[k-chill]

Vaporwave really understood the uncanniness at the core of Kenny G's music.

[mikrophonie]

I heard Kenny is going avant-garde and his next album will be musique concrete using granular synthesis and will be released on the GRM label.

[fallinditch]

The fact that he supposedly practices for three hours a day with virtually non-existent musical development is even more baffling than his sales in my opinion. What a weird, weird thing his career is. Interesting video Samuel, i didn't think a video about Kenny G could be this thought provoking.

[kgrant]

Kenny G is to music as Thomas Kinkade is to visual art

[bruford]

Like some authors, Kenny has cemented a succe$$ful formula.

[SputnikExperiment]

"It's like this world where nothing upsetting is allowed to happen. And it's so ruthlessly antiseptic in that sense ..." I find this statement personally upsetting because this has become a personal and social idea for many. I never took the time to listen to actually listen and pay attention to Kenny G's music until after I started to write this comment. Intellectually, there's nothing there. Emotionally, his music can have a calming effect under certain conditions an irritating under others. After an emotionally draining day where you're dealing with clients/collogues who are difficult to deal with or difficult to respect as human beings, Kenny G can be quite soothing and I would listen to it for that very purpose. If I feel aggravated by life's circumstances, I may listen to some Kenny G to mellow out -- like a non carcinogenic equivalent of a cigarette break.

And when I want music to admire and to feel inspired by, give me Maurice Ravel or Claude Debussy or Karol Szymanowski, or F-J Haydn. [Or any of the great masters, these just happen to be some of my favorites at this moment in time]