When did smooth jazz start?

I'd say Whiteman is the closest we've gotten to the answer in this thread. Smooth jazz has been around a long time; it just wasn't explicitly called that until later. It's unfortunate we're getting so much negativity in the thread about the genre, though. The SH forum can be very frustrating in its narrow orthodoxy. (And yet when we have a thread asking how wide folks' tastes are, the vast majority of responses are everyone trying to one-up each other re their supposed open-mindedness.)

 

Jobim was one of the inventors of bossa nova, and I can promise you that when he was recording in the U.S., he hand-picked many of the players. For example, he loved Urbie Green. He also insisted on using a Brasilian drummer, usually Dom Um Romao, for his recordings. If you consider Jobim to be smooth jazz, it is only because smooth jazz latched onto bossa, not the other way around.

 

Just because Paul Desmond had a light, pretty style, and the band had a hit record thanks to a catchy melodic head and Teo Macero pulling some strings (he tells the story on YouTube of how he broke it in Chicago), doesn't make Brubeck's music "smooth jazz." Brubeck took a fair amount of criticism due to his penchant for clunky block chords, inspired by modern classical, and rhythms that didn't swing. Desmond was the sugar that helped it go down; but, in his own way, Brubeck tried to challenge conventions.

 

Brubeck's rhythms did swing; it was just that some people couldn't swing with 'em.

Anyone who labels him "smooth jazz" isn't listening very closely.

 

I would argue Smooth Jazz requires at least some electric instruments. Not sure you can even play it with an all acoustic band.
At a minimum, electric bass is essential to the sound, and would suggest keyboards (and not piano) are signature elements too.
Probably why George Benson's sound tips in this direction, the electric guitar sound is closely associated closely with the genre.
There is an evolution from Fusion, rather than traditional jazz.

 

"Most?" I wouldn't say that at all. Plenty of smooth jazz artists play guitar or piano.

 

CTI records

 

We do know that Kenny G did the most to kill it off.

 

I did the arduous task of going through what was tagged as "smooth-jazz" on RYM and listened chronologically. Some of those early Tim Weisberg recordings were the first things that I heard that seemed to tick all the boxes. I was also reminded of how badly Wes Montgomery lost the plot...good lord.

 

Not necessarily. For example, what makes "Intuition" sound smooth-jazzy (to me at least), is Eddie Gomez (much more so than Bill Evans). Gomez has that very annoying 'rubber band' upright bass style. It's slinky and poppy, and veers into elevator muzak territory. I can't believe that George Cleve wrote on the back of the LP cover: "In case there was any doubt in anyone's mind, this album should establish the fact that Eddie Gomes is one of the two greatest bass players in the history of jazz." (sic!)

Come again? Whaaaaa? Wtf! Who's the other one he had in mind as the greatest bass player in the history of jazz? Was that some kind of an off colour joke?

Of course, Bill was ill advised to use electric piano on that album, but still he plays everything beautifully (as always).

 

Just to clarify my position, to me smooth jazz is largely music that usually pipes out of the ceiling speakers in elevators, airports, supermarkets, corporate office lobbies, etc. For instance, you will never hear original "Girl from Ipanema" playing over the PA in supermarkets etc., but on any given day you can hear variety of 'castrated' versions of that tune. By 'castrated' I mean sanitized, bleached, any harsh edges sanded off. It usually means less prominent bass, any percussion either removed or hushed down, and sax or guitar or piano improvisation staying within the two octaves max range. The original "Girl from Ipanema" is way too edgy for the soft jazz crowd. Stan Getz's sax alone sounds scary to the soft eared crowds.

It really doesn't matter if they are playing soft-jazzified version of some jazz standard, or "Norwegian Wood", or some Brazilian or Cuban or Sting etc. No matter what the original source may be, the soft jazz versions all sound pretty much as if cut from the same cloth.

Some people accuse those who dislike soft jazz as being snobbish, but in reality we cannot pretend that soft jazz is real music. It's nothing more than muzak, in the best sense of the word.

 

This doesn't fit my definition of smooth jazz, not even close.

 

Any style of music is a display of the musician's attempt at speaking in a musical language that can't be put into words. That's what lyrics are for. There are many languages in music as there are dialects usually defined by the culture of origination. Jazz's origination was from African American spiritual and gospel music from churches where there was a lot of letting go and letting the spirit move them so it appears they are reacting spontaneously from an out of this world spirit. It has the familiar appearance of a natural reaction to an honest emotion.

It is called "falling in the spirit" as it is referred to in the born again Baptist churches I used to attend. Or what my folks called "Holy Rollers". Jazz is an expression of the language of the spontaneous which is the ultimate in relaying sincerity of an emotion. Remember Elvis's moves that are expressing something sexual but without saying sexual words? That's a similar language. It doesn't sound or look fake. It is VERY sincere and honest.

It looks like the musician is possessed by an other worldly spirit that is expressing a language not heard of on Earth. No one can mistake it for anything else but it can't be described in words just as Elvis's moving his hips the way he did was sourced from those he saw in churches who were "Falling In The Spirit".

Jazz is a similar expression of honest emotion particularly during spontaneous riffing on top of the melody of a song. Much like a bird singing "Birdland" it sounds like the animal is spontaneously expressing an emotion with rhythm and phrasing of each note played. There's no mistaking it as the sound of an animal.

Smooth Jazz condenses this emotional spontaneity into a short conversation which is self evident in it's phrasing, timing and simplicity. We still get the gist of the basic emotion. It's just been translated into a common music language.

Can you tell I'm a musician?

 

Different kind of smooth.

 

OK, I see your point. And I think you're probably right. I guess the problem lies with the word 'smooth'. Perhaps a better word would be 'soft'?

Soft jazz. Safe, non-threatening, non-demanding. Music that invites people to have a conversation, to not feel guilty for not listening attentively to the performance.

 

Wonder how many young people from the mid/late 70s on just never touched jazz because they thought jazz was smooth jazz?

 

Paul Desmond's Take Ten is a smooth jazz album to me. Recorded in '63 & produced by George Avakian. No idea if it's the "first," and I can understand those naming Brubeck as the proto-Smooth Jazz godfather. Personally "smooth jazz" is not a bad word to me, and I listen to it without guilt on occasion.

 

For me it started in the late 80's with the NY FM station WQCD CD101.9 smooth jazz!

 

Odd things do fit though

 

Wouldn't know but I've read numerous accounts thru the years of people who DID get into Jazz after 1st listening to Smooth.

 

That's Muzak not smooth jazz.

 

Right. Not all jazz that is smooth is Smooth Jazz. Smooth Jazz is an actual genre which stems more from fusion than it does from beebop or other earlier acoustic forms of jazz. It’s light electric jazz played over pop chord progressions with a light touch of funk. The albums are highly polished studio affairs. Breezin’ pretty much defines the sound in a good way, though it gets bland and watered down by other artists pretty quickly.
Mr Magic was a great funky jazz album but successive albums by Mr Washington are terribly bland IMO.

 

Think Kenny G - not Paul Desmond!

 

"smooth jazz" is a well defined genre, the name means something as is.
Just do a search on youtube videos, you'll get many hours of it,
or internet radio that has it as a playlist style.

Smooth Jazz on JAZZRADIO.com - JAZZRADIO.com - enjoy great jazz music

 

About the same time as the weather channel.