"Smooth" Jazz aesthetic in some 70s pop -Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell

I have to confess I have always had an intense distaste for "smooth" jazz or anything sounding like it. A few years ago, people on this forum were raving about Steely Dan's Aja, so I bought an original pressing. I couldn't stand it. It sounded too much like "smooth" jazz to me. Last week I was having a conversation with a musician friend and she was excited about going to see Steely Dan. I mentioned my initial impression of them, and she told me her brother (also a musician) feels the same way.

Then last week I also happened across a cheap WLP of Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark". I recently had really gotten into her album "Blue", so this was a no-brainer purchase for me, especially in VG condition at $3. I put it on the turntable. More "smooth" jazz-like nonsense! Cripes! It's my impression that the production totally obscures the wonderful songwriting, rather than enhancing it. Am I the only one here who feels this way?

 

Very often people confuse tight musicianship & playing with "smooth jazz". Happens everyday on this forum. Even musicians who aren't very good players do this...

 

Nope. I wouldn't even call much of the songwriting wonderful. But that's really down to different tastes and all that. I just don't worry too much about music that doesn't move me.

 

I know what "tight" musicianship is. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with choices of harmonies, sonorities, and notes. Plus, the addition of certain instruments doesn't help, either.

 

Let's just say that, after the wonderful revelation that was the timeless playing and songwriting on "Blue", "Court and Spark" seems to be a mess mired in an aesthetic bound to a very specific time and place. I guess if you were around at that time, it makes sense and evokes a certain feeling, but for an "outsider", it just sounds like smooth jazz. And, for the record, I love "real" jazz.

 

Ok then. Adding simple 7ths, 9ths, 11ths & 13ths to chords confuses people on this forum too... Same with deceptive cadences....

This whole "smooth jazz" (= no feeling ) criticism on this forum is so tiresome....

 

Steely Dan, Joni, etc. are acquired tastes. You either get their idiosyncrasies in their music or you don't. I do happen to like those kinds of music. I have read elsewhere on the internet where they think that people like Les Paul are guitar shredders when I think that Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Vince Gill, etc. type of guitarists are just great soloists.

 

I never said it didn't have feeling. I just said I didn't like it.

I remember something I read in my Modern music (meaning modern "classical" music) class once, and that is, that added note chords don't make something "modern" necessarily. Along the same vein, added note chords don't make something sound like 70's smooth jazz either. It's all about their application and timing. Perhaps it's about their overuse in that time period.

 

Remember, I absolutely love "Blue" and her earlier work.

 

Took me a while to get into Steely Dan too. I also find turning it up so it doesn't sound like elevator music helps a lot.

 

Ha! Maybe I'll try this!

 

True. I was there. It drove me towards listening to '50's rockabilly and '70's punk. I still get the same feeling. I'd still rather listen to just about anything else. I get what they're doing, it's just not something I like.

 

Joni and Josie never smooth jazz...am I crazy?

 

Can't disagree with you more. I absolutely LOVE exactly the thing that you hate - the smooth jazzy influence on some of 70's soft-rock and singer-songwriters.

 

Me too. BTW, Amy Grant's style is obviously influenced by a lot of this kind of music and she incorporates it well, IMO.

 

It never occurred to me the the L.A. Express could be considered smooth jazz.

They retained enough expressiveness and unique sound to set them apart from the bland soulless noodlings that I usually associate with the genre. And they helped enhance the more urbane songs that she was writing at that time.

 

Joni and Steely Dan are not smooth jazz one bit. If you want to hear smooth jazz, turn on a smooth jazz station.

 

I'll confess to liking some smooth jazz - started with listening to the commercial free music channel from my cable provider - as background music to the day.

Then I heard some really good (to me at least) guitar work by Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton - who get categorically lumped into 'smooth jazz'....ok....whatever.....fantastic guitar work and good sounding tunes.

And....it was a stepping stone to 'real jazz' - Coltrane, Davis, Burrell, Montgomery, Art Pepper, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers - all on SACDs in my collection.


But I still like 'smooth jazz' - just like all things in life, some is good, some ain't.

But the Haters are going to Hate no matter what...

 

Lee Ritenour, Earl Klugh, Larry Carlton are great.

 

I remember reading an interview with Steely Dan (in THE ONION, I think) where they were asked about their influence on later music. They answered dolefully that their influence was minor, except for "smooth jazz," which jazzers often see as the equivalent of easier-listening cool jazz. It supposedly lacks the "heat," improvisational daring, real-time improvised interaction btwn players, and sense of centrifugal dancer and complexity of the core of modern jazz.

I would guess that this is mostly true, though I don't listen to smooth jazz by choice.

There was a tinge of regret in the Dan's confession, because I think they may see smooth jazz as a label for instrumental background music with an r & b groove and sweet saxes or other melodist on top playing a melody playing "straight," a la Kenny G or Earl Klugh. But of course the story of the connection is there to be told. Consider the Tom Scott horn arrangements on AJA, the extra-tight rhythmic control of Dan studio sessions, or the general soundscape of the most recent DAN albums. Now, those Tom Scott arrangements also sound like the Jazz Crusaders, who were perhaps an earlier incarnation of "smooth jazz."

I think this dilemma is part of why Fagen and Becker wrote such acidic lyrics about junkies, perverts, criminals, and such. The music becomes a trojan horse sometimes. And remember that the band name comes from Burroughs' NAKED LUCNH, where it is a name for a dildo--that is, an artificial phallus. That irony of artifice vs. jazz authenticity is at the heart of much Dan music. Now as to what "authenticity" is, wel....

 

I know, this thread is a couple years old ...

I am largely in agreement with the OP. But I find DevilDuck's comment, "I also find turning it up so it doesn't sound like elevator music helps a lot", instructive.

Some music has energy; other music doesn't. Energy has no direct relationship to genre. (So-called smooth jazz can have energy ... or not.)

Music can be quiet and have energy. Neil Young's acoustic guitar work may be quiet but it has energy (at least, it did during his "classic" era).

Conversely, music can be loud yet not have energy. In my opinion, musicians often compensate for mediocre music by cranking up the volume to produce an artificial energy. That's why DevilDuck's comment is instructive: if you have to crank up the music to enjoy it, there's something lacking in the recording.

Pop music with jazz inflections rarely succeeds, in my opinion, but occasionally it does. Bachman Turner Overdrive was a hard rock band, but songs like Blue Collar, Looking Out For Number One, and even Rock Is My Life, This Is My Song have jazz inflections -- and are terrific!

So the problem isn't jazzish pop music per se. Music can be jazzy, and quiet, yet have energy. I think Joni Mitchell pulls that off, but only sometimes. I'm not so sure about Steely Dan ....

 

I'm not sure why people insist on referring to Steely Dan a smooth Jazz. It is some of the edgiest music and lyrics I've ever heard.

I liked Joni's folk period records and her Jazz influenced stage too. She became more sophisticated musically and she soaked up knowlege from some of the top players in the music biz. If Mingus dug her enough to make a record with her who am I to question her choices?

 

I don't hear much smooth jazz-like music in Steely Dan. The jazz influences seem to be Horace Silver-style, groovy soul, West Coast cool (see, e.g., the contributions of Victor Feldman on Steely Dan albums), and laid-back electronica of the kind someone like Bobby Hutcherson was purveying at the time (see Bobby's great album Montara).

 

I'll come at this from another angle - one that enabled me to really appreciate Steely Dan for the first time not all that long ago.

For all the smooth production on records like Aja and Court And Spark, you have these biting lyrics that are sort of the bitter pill covered in a sugar coating. Both albums (and a lot of the Dan stuff in general) are artistic representations of simultaneous revulsion and fixation towards a certain lifestyle. That comes through in both the smooth production and bitter lyrics.

 

+1000%!

I completely agree with this, though I know it puts me in the distinct minority.

While I quite like Can't Buy a Thrill, most of the rest of Steely Dan's catalog leaves me cold, for the very reason you cite. That oh-so-cool sophisticated approach, with the absolutely pristine sound, seems to turn a lot of people on. But it's anathema to me. So sterile and lifeless. I prefer a little warmth and passion in my music.

Let the flaming begin!