Composer Reacts to Kenny G 

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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 🤣

"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.

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.)

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.

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.

The lightheartedness’s in format of this video balances nicely with the heavier videos in the channel. That was fun. Cheers Samuel!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I think his mass appeal is due to offering music as mass anesthetic. An anesthetic aesthetic.

"Attenborough on Kenny G" is a great followup video to Samuel Andreyev's thoughtful analysis presented here.

"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]

When I was learning jazz back in my younger days, Kenny G was one my idols until I really got into jazz, then I hated him for a while. But now, I appreciate his technical skill and do look at his music like musical wallpaper, all surface. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, just not the type of music I like to listen to regularly. Kenny G himself has admitted he has no real artistic goal, just to make music he likes. So the music itself being all surface is definitely consistent with his artistic "vision."

Very interesting review, thank you!

I'm a lifelong (age 56) music lover with a great diversity of domains of musical appreciation -- nearly all of it -- jazz, pop, blues, R&B, rock, African, Indian, "world"..., even bluegrass.... I'm not a musician, and I don't know the vocabulary of music theory. But I'm loving listening to and watching your videos, Samuel. You're revealing things to me which feel important and valuable, but it's difficult to say just what. Something about language and art. Something profound and vast in its scope. I think I'm learning how to listen all anew, and it will impact how I appreciated and experience any art form -- or even my practice of philosophy. (I'm a philosopher-poet who brings a similar sensibility to my work which you bring to yours.) I just love the way you bring spoken language to the mysterious language of sound and music! "Danger" -- yes! Thanks brother!

So, no contrast, no vision. You literally can't see (or feel in any way) without contrast. So he's blinding us. And that is his appeal. Gentle willful blindness.

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

great stuff! would love to see you analysis and reaction to more popular music.

Love your random meme edits interspersed throughout this video!!

All I pretty much know about Kenny G is his 1992 album "Breathless" which I bought back in those days and I really enjoyed the whole album. It was easy to my ears and it kind of went with me making breakfast in a Saturday morning and the rays of the sun coming through my windows. I love all kinds of musical genres from Classical music to Pink Floyd to Savage Garden or Mariachi music or Salsa or Bossa Nova and sometimes I can change to Iron Maiden or The Beatles. As long as there are real musical instruments involved, I like discovering new artists as well. Kenny G’s music is enjoyable to me, but I wouldn’t listen to it for more than a couple of ours. But when I do, it soothes me, it feels good to me.

More, please!

Thank you for this hugely entertaining but also educational post, Samuel. Those instantly identifiable little ornamentations in his playing are the main thing that drives me away. They're like the sonic equivalent of someone wiggling his eyebrows at you, as if to say "Pretty good, huh?"

I first heard Kenny G in around 1987. He was included in the programming of a radio station that was strictly New Age, principally minimalist. It was a channel that you could hear composers like Brian Eno - who I consider the most important artist of the late 20th Century in many fields, video, music, and rock - as well as Enya - who I consider a master that while others were busy trying to find the weirdest sounds possible with early midi technology, she was achieving extremely organic sounds while creating a mystical atmosphere with that technology. From the same period, Branford Marsalis played on Sting’s breakout solo album soprano sax, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. It is possible that if you were able to isolate Marsalis’ lines from Sting’s songs, he may appear to be almost the same as Kenny G. The Selmer soprano sax by its nature is very very light, almost english horn like. I played in the 70’s soprano sax, but mine was nickel silver from the 40’s which had a far more ballsy tone, especially in the low range. I think the brand was Martin. In the early 70’s, following Beefheart’s example - both musically and lyrically - Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson played soprano sax as did Van Vliet. But Anderson also played sopranino sax on A Passion Play. From what I understand, the instrument was just a scaled down soprano sax - rather than building a new instrument from scratch - which rendered it with intonation problems. Anderson used the sopranino sax to create a sound that suggested bagpipes. On A Passion Play, you can find the sopranino in the section where guitarist Martin Barre creates a Hendrix-like march. One of my first bosses at a ice cream parlor that I worked at was a former standup bass player from the 40’s and 50’s. He said that the soprano sax was euphemistically called in the jazz community a “fish horn”, from the time when men pushing a fish cart in the street would announce their presence blowing a horn with a similar sound. Like I said, Kenny G was on a New Age station. And his name had probably a spiritual/guru significance. Like the Indian tendency to call spiritual leaders things like Gandhiji. He just used “G” instead of “ji”… I think Kenny G was the new Muzak®, to relax office workers and supermarket customers. I don’t know which is worse, Kenny G or The 101 Strings playing Beethoven’s 5th as a tango… .

Every music has its place. The comparison with Satie's furniture music was interesting asf. Good video!

Very interesting. Thank you.

"It made my bike ride slightly more pleasant." I love that. All critical semiotic theory aside, we've just crossed a linguistic frontier and planted the flag of arch irony in the syntactical eden of understated dismissals . . . but seriously, this video is a wonderful, forgiving peek at the spectacle of low art through the spectacles of high art.

Fascinating to hear your thoughts on this. You do a superb job of describing some of the subtle oddities of these tracks. "Like an object that doesn't cast a shadow" I found particularly evocative. Also interesting that you brought up AI, as I was thinking exactly the same thing. The music has the same "surface-level imitation' quality that e.g. an "impressionist" DALL-E generated artwork has. You can identify properties of jazz in the music, but it's held together by a strange or nonexistent logic.

I had that CD too! So many great artists on there!

I really enjoyed this video and I also want to take your advice to listen to a lot of different music that's outside my comfort zone, that's something I don't do often enough. One thing I find particularly interesting in this video is at 14:20 you say that you're not sure what Kenny G is doing is music. I don't remember if you've talked about it in a previous video, but what is your definition of music? I like to use the definition James Tenney used which he attributed to John Cage, which is "sounds heard".

"there's just something about this almost pathological refusal to admit any kind of ambiguity or danger or anything , it's like this world in which nothing upsetting is ever allowed to happen and it'so ruthlessly antiseptic in that sense that it becomes kind of unsettling, slightly depressing experience" You could not have said it better. And you made me realize that if his music was a film, it would be The stepford wives or something like that.

Kenny G’s sound is like McDonald’s burgers: nothing really wrong with it but nothing great either. But it’s very standardized and immediately recognizable. But Kenny came up in the Seattle soul scene of the 70s and integrated a great band Cold, Bold & Together. He was brought in by members who felt he played like Grover Washington. There’s a great documentary on this scene and era, Wheedles Groove where he talks at length on the era. So what the hell, he paid his dues , made a successful brand and took it to the bank.

This was extremely entertaining.

I found this exercise very interesting. Your video sets a good example of how we should keep pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone, just like we do when we first listen to Schoenberg. My experience of this is clouded by my childhood: I grew up in a home that always had jazz or classical or new age playing--my dad was obsessed with buying music and there was always music on, morning to night. I was listening to Miles Davis or John Coltrane before I knew what it was. I remember listening to Duke Ellington's "Soul Call" obsessively when I was in seventh-grade jazz band, trying to imitate it, or doing my homework to Dexter Gordon, or eating breakfast to Bach organ sonatas or Keith Jarrett. When I was 15, I used to carry in my wallet a list of Köchel numbers of the Mozart pieces I or my dad owned recordings of. I got my first job at a record store at 16 (in the classical music section) because I mentioned during the interview that Vladimir Horowitz was married to Arturo Toscanini's daughter, Wanda. Anyway, you get the idea. But my dad was not a musician or a connoisseur, and not a snob either, so he/we listened to a lot of other stuff too, like Ray Lynch or Andreas Vollenweider or Shadowfax or Yanni or...Kenny G. As a kid, it never seemed flawed or flat to me, just a simple kind of sound, like spring peepers in a pond. I only later learned how to despise it. (Now in adulthood, I can't handle much of it, but it does give me a nostalgic pleasure for a second, before I start to squirm). For those of us who follow your channel, I think it is really useful to try to listen to pablum like this, because there is something really powerful about it, something weird and eerie because it is unnaturally bright, with no shadow, no hint of death or change. It helps put in relief what is sublime in other music. To scoff at it is to misunderstand or ignore a piece of the human psyche.

I love that there's nothing mean-spirited about your appraisal. You're simply offering your honest opinion. Which somehow winds up being more devastating than Pat Metheny's vitriol could ever be. That said, I believe you have seriously underestimated both Mr. G's intentions and accomplishments as an artist. I think it is clear to any unbiased listener that Kenny G has always been deeply concerned with the psychoacoustics of confined spaces, and not merely in an aesthetic sense, but in an ethical sense as well. I mean, I don't know about you, but the last place I want to experience danger is inside of an elevator. I don't know offhand how many people die each year in elevator accidents, and I don't want to know. As far as I'm concerned Kenny G is doing me a favor. If they played Eric Dolphy in elevators I'd never get off. The elevator, I mean.

Now I want to buy some Kinkade paintings and invite some mild acquaintances over. Play some Kenny G and offer them a Martini and Rossi on the rocks and just let them squirm uncomfortably for a while before I let them in on the joke

Kenny G is a fantastic saxophonist and the audience who pay for his music are more important to him than musicians who don't really pay for music. He isn't making music for musicians and jazz critics. He is making music for the consumers and hia bank account reflect the appeal and that's all that is important.

I haven't watched you in a while, and it seems like you've become a real RU-vidr. Scrolling through Instagram for ideas, using Twitter polls, using memes, and making a reaction video: Professional Classical Composer Reacts to Smooth Jazz

I grew up with Kenny G. I loved this segment. The functionality of commercial music had been revealed in your exploration. Beware the danger is in the operation.

I love how diplomatic you were, considering what a small intersection there (probably) is on a venn diagram between your fans and Kenny's. To your points about "no danger" and his music being "antiseptic", would you say that modern quantized auto-tuned preset heavy music draws from the same well? I know that when I listen to say Imagine Dragons or The Weekend I'm struck by an uncanny valley feeling, and I'm wondering if that is the source. Thanks for all you do, love from San Pedro CA!

Very interesting indeed, perticularily for me, because my Symphony No 9 (I'm composing them in reverse order to avoid Mahler's curse) starts with an intro which is exactly something that would be by Kenny G, with the soprano sax doing "that thing". The symphony ends in hell (the main point of the symphony) and there we hear Kenny again, for no hell is complete without him. So it's great to see this reaction here. Great observations. Thank you!

I would be interested in a reaction to the HBO documentary Listening to Kenny G....you are just the person to give us a breakdown!

7:05 Reminds me of Milan Kundera's chapter on kitsch in The Unbearable Lightness of Being :D

Hi Samuel. You should do a reaction to the Imperial Triumphant song called Merkurius Gilded featuring Kenny G and his son Max. It's avant-garde Black Metal (I guess). I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well it worked in that context!

Samuel it's courageous of you to have that in your data trail. I'm morbidly curious, but ...

This may sound reductive, and perhaps insulting (to Kenny G fans), but I think your Stravinsky story (16:00) hits it on the head. I saw a profile of Gorelick (might have been on "60 Minutes") and it was very clear -- and I will try to be as nice about this as I can -- that the man and his music are a lot alike: polished, no rough edges, without blemish, a surface sophistication. Multi-dimensional he is not. He projects an attention to craft without a thought for meaning. No one can deny his status as a pure journeyman -- competent, hard-working, dedicated -- and he all but describes himself this way. (Though he was a terrible interview.) In other words, I think it may very well be the case that he is bringing "the whole man" to his playing. That is what we are hearing: exactly who he is. It's NOT avant-garde or meta in any way, but it IS fully transparent. If he worked in an office, he would be the kind of employee who is there every day, is fully competent, never rocks the boat, never gets promoted, eventually retires and is utterly forgotten. And his audience likely shares and appreciates exactly this aspect of his image and music: no airs, no challenges, no aspirations, no disappointments. It's music BY a journeyman FOR the journeymen of the world. Essentially blank music, onto which a listener can project whatever they like, or, more likely, not project anything at all. Some commenters here have mentioned Thomas Kinkade, which seems appropriate, but I would go more with Patrick Nagel, whose cheap, distinctive prints graced the living rooms of so many "yuppies" back in the day. (Frank Gehry, anyone?) Kenny G has perfected the art of sounding sophisticated to the non-sophisticated ear, utterly free of any type of challenge, and I believe that he is doing it by simply being himself. There is an honesty in that which I can appreciate, even envy. But the music? Downright painful to my inner musician.

Incredibly sophisticated damnation - loved it.

I would like to hear your thoughts on Ludovico Einaudi

Komar and Melamid also did a pair of the most wanted/unwanted paintings. Of course these pairs have to be heard and seen together to produce the full effect.

Amazing reaction my friend Samuel!!....In 2017, the music world was shocked by the bursting onto the scene of a 22-year-old singer named Dimash Kudaibergen, who performed on the famous Chinese competition show for professional singers called “The Singer”... It was just It was necessary for this young man to make his first appearance, making a cover of one of the most difficult songs in the world, a famous French composition called "S.O.S. D'un Terrien En Détresse", to be considered from that moment on as the best singer in the entire planet....No one in the musical field had ever seen a human being, being able to reach vocal ranges above 7 octaves and several semitones, that is, all 88 keys of a digital piano, which reaches a little more than 7 octaves and as if that weren't enough, sing the more than 12 languages...Since then all kinds of experts (Vocal coach, analysts, singing teachers, youtubers, reactors, etc.) have dedicated themselves to reviewing their presentations to try to understand how someone can sing this way...The incredible thing is that that presentation in China was in 2017 and 5 years have passed since then, but what Dimash has done in these 5 years is to further improve his wide vocal range, which is currently practically above of the 8 octaves... The Covid pandemic stopped his concerts worldwide, all with tickets sold in just seconds, via the internet, but at the same time it ended up catapulting him to the top of popularity worldwide...Anyway, since I think you are one of those reactors who have not yet met this impressive singer, here is the link of that presentation in China in 2017, with the song S.O.S. and I would like you to mention my name as the person who recommended him to you...You have to be prepared because you ar going to receive an avalanche of views, comments and new subscribers....I leave you one more recent video than the others, so it does not have the same number of views as the previous ones, which have millions of views, but it is a more complete video, with an intro, subtitles in several languages and with the improved quality of audio and sound....ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bDX3FhmyNac.html

Yes, I wish I were Kenny G.

Pat metheny's call out of kenny g was a little extreme but not unwarranted hahaha

Kenny G in the 21st century has embraced that "sameness" quality. His audience, many of whom I play for at different events, really do match what you say about wanting that "place where no danger is allowed" and I think he has just found that he's perfectly comfortable with that. I would invite you to listen to his best selling album from like 1992 album Breathless which doesn't all sound "the same", but certainly lives within that safe space. His breakout solo album Duotones is actually not the Kenny G he would become in the nineties. That music is like new age meeting jazz and he's much more okay showing off more of a style that has more flourishes and much more open sections of obvious improvisation. He broke through, as you say, at a time that many woodwind players can't imagine having that kind of attention. However, by the time of his 2nd holiday album in 1999, the sound you hear even now was well cemented. I am by no means a huge fan, but I have to consistently be aware, especially if I am playing in one of those "wallpaper" gigs with a saxophonist that inevitably we will be asked to play something by Kenny G. And with only 1 exception, every one of those musicians said they didn't know any of this music, and then would roll their eyes. I appreciated the one sax guy that took the time to have his 2 signature Kenny G songs ready to go when the inevitable happened, and I do remember people tipped us well. Anyway, as a young teenager, Breathless was important, the opening track even at one time being one of my favorite instrumental pieces I'd been exposed to at that time. My parents brought something actually "new" into the household which was such a rarity.

Have you listened to Paul Anka's cover versions of famous pop/rock songs, they are quite amazing!

I haven't listened to this yet, but I bet it is something where he has his signature sound then it's something people put on maybe while sitting around or reading or as ambient music in a space like a supermarket. It is probably not a sort of product meant to be dug into to learn anything, so much as it is holding that protective blanket of always sounding safe and never doing anything as the benefit.

I remember seeing a list of music Kenny G admires, and surprisingly it was mostly edgy and very good.

please please please allan holdsworth video i would melt

I was put on hold by my bank this morning. His piece "The Moment" is not dissimilar to the music I listened to. The piece currently has over 80 million views. I have a few hundred for my composition on Spotify, is the disparity of quality so great? Or is he the Andy Warhol of modern music?

Listening along with the music playing in another tab. It brings to mind one of those sci-fi films where people dressed in white are wandering around in a drug induced torpor with this playing in the background.

I think his popularity can be explained that humans are incredibly diverse in their tastes. I consider my music taste to be relatively highbrow, despite not knowing much about theory, so I enjoy Prokofiev, Feldman, Coltrane, and so on. My movie tastes are probably more middlebrow, so Tarkovsky and Tarr are a bit dull for me and I like The Shawshank Redemption and Lawrence of Arabia. Then there’s my taste in food. I like pizza and cheeseburgers and cheap lager. I don’t think there’s much mystery to it. He’s easily digestible for people who have brains that don’t want the kind of challenges that more complex music is offering.

Thank you for this. I don’t really get anything from the Kenny G music I've heard. On the other hand, from my mid-teens to my early 20s, I felt peer pressure to like certain music because it was cool, and dislike other music because it was uncool. Eventually I decided that coolness and excellence are uncorrelated variables. There can be music which is both cool and piss poor, and music which is both uncool and sublime. Your mileage may vary.

Kenny G is certainly an enigma. I saw the first part of a documentary about him recently and he was asked "What do you love about music?". He looked completely baffled by the question, as if it had never occurred to him and he had never given it any thought. He said after a pause - "I don't think I do love music..". A revealing answer, and rather shows an emotional disconnect from what he's doing, and can account perhaps also for the long hours of practice - as if technique is in some way a substitute for emotion. Anyway, you mention Erik Satie and I would also suggest, for genuinely purposeful background music, you cannot beat Brian Eno - he did after all write Music For Airports - though I think Thursday Afternoon is a particularly good example of the genre. There's enough going in these pieces to intrigue, but not so much that you are distracted or get irritated , unlike KG ...

Thanks for posting this detour from your usual content, Samuel. I can only guess that everyone has heard of Kenny G, but I don’t think I had every knowingly listened to anything by him before. After watching your video, I was curious, so I listened to Emeline. It was pretty much what I expected, but I gave it a fair hearing. I found that I did not dislike what I heard. Not at all, in fact. I didn’t love it, either. But I definitely appreciate the production quality, the balance between the sax melody and the accompaniment, and the effect was not off-putting. I suspect that the appeal of Kenny G’s music is that it is about as neutral as it could be. Perhaps that’s essentially what the artist is going for, and if so, he definitely nails it with Emeline. While his tonality is a tad sharp, it’s not glaring to my ears, and I suspect he does this to make the melody more salient. From a composer’s point of view, I guess what I admire most is the self-restraint here. It’s almost as though Kenny G (or whoever composed the piece) were trying to restrain himself from getting very creative. I don’t mean that in a negative way, though I get that it likely comes across this way. It appears he gets an idea or two for a melody and the rest is crafting a 3- to 3.5-minute piece in which that melody is repeated and slightly varied throughout with subtle accompaniment; the rest is in production or post-production. Maybe as a challenge I’ll try to compose something in the vein of Kenny G. That would not be easy for me as I tend to approach composing as an adventure, and what I’ve heard is not at all adventurous (relative to what I tend to listen to and create).

Are you a fan of Night Walk/ Night Drive / Night Moves? If you don’t know these old Canadian tv programs, there’s another “smooth jazz” rabbit hole for you.

Art galleries with Kenny G in one room and Brian Eno in the other.

All said and done, however, Kenny G is an excellent golfer.

He got a very distinct sound, his music is very easy to listen to. So I guess that's why he's so successful.

Actually saw Kenny G possibly 2x. He was on a double bill with MILES DAVIS! At Lincoln Center in 1987..MILES performed 1st...when Kenny G performed ppl were leaving in droves. I did own Duo Tones cassette @ that time

My father, who was weirdly reticent on the phone with me, once offered his somewhat detailed disgust at Kenny G, apropos of nothing. I barely recognized the name. This was around the turn of the century.

I haven't listened to this artist, but I know what you mean about it not having any "danger", like all the corners have been rounded off and rendered kid-safe, made to be completely innocuous at the cost of everything else. Of the other music I listen to in this same vein, I listen to it as an examination of corporatism (or a variety of corporatism, at least), things made to be marketable and immediately palatable to anyone and everyone without anything standing out enough to cast a shadow on anything else made in the same style. I don't think it's intentionally like that, but it's an interesting way to listen to it. As far as why music like this is popular, the majority of people hear music without listening to it, and this type of style (for lack of a better term) is their bread and butter.

I’m a HUGE Fan of Kenny G and His Beautiful FamilyBand! You mentioned How HE Has ‘His Sound’ and that Is Exactly What is Unique about Him and What HE does Create that You are Feeling From what is Inside ‘His Heart’ it’s His Uniqueness and Believe me It’s His Inner Feeling You Feel In Your Heart … It’s Like You know Exactly Where He is Going and What HE is Feeling and THAT is Truly a Beautiful Moment You get w/His Sound … it’s His Gift of a Connection ‘YOU Feel’ and Where You Want to Be w/His Sound it’s Beautiful and that is what Makes Him absolutely Incredible! A Sax has Awesome Vibes and Amazing Energy, but … Sometimes There is That ONE Person that Plays a SAX that You actually Get it and Feel that Enormous Amount of Love in it and That’s what I Get! A Fabulous Place You Feel and I’m Positive His Fans absolutely Feel it and Get it Too! He Has class a style and it’s His Name that Is recognized with ‘HIS Beautiful and EXTRA SPECIAL SOUND’ Luv it!

I had to have a listen to the official video for Emiline here on RU-vid and to me it really was 'lift music' but if you want to see what his fans think read the comments over there, a very different take on his music.

I have never heard so many cutting and savage remarks made by a human being who was not intentionally trying to be acerbic. i have to save all of these insults in a notebook somewhere for later use

He is Jackson pollock minus the Van Gogh

The only bad thing with this video is that now I feel the need to "visit" Kenny G's new album 🤣

I'm scared to listen to the album because Spotify or RU-vid might start suggesting more KG in the future.

Hopefully Samuel and Kenny could arrange a little two hour chat on the podcast discussing the presented points further

You're looking for something within this music and you can't find it because indeed there is nothing there, and that drives me crazy too! I think maybe this music appeals to a crowd who isn't worried about finding something else within the music besides the sound itself, so they can just relax with it.

Okay I skimmed through "New Standards" on You Tube- Wow it REALLY really does all sound the same! Half Note heaven! Here and there they venture into quarter note melodic sections -but reeealy same-ish stuff. I can see Brian Eno exploiting Kenny G in a collab in such a way that he and KG would release the same recording to their respective audiences: One being presented unironically, the other . . . .

I guess the joke is on us! Selling 75 million albums shows how many people just like background noise

Imperial Triumphant "Merkurius Gilded"...

;Destabilizing " . That's the word I've been searching for that's what dodecaphony strives for ? Serialism is a type of organicism so its really a type of hyper -classicism.Maybe a little knowledge is dangerous.This is why most people dont want to listen to the Eroica or Heininen or Turnage . People who are not caring prefer background . Is it possible to spend a lifetime making "surface " music . Donald Judd gets written up a lot as does Stellawho unlike Judd does involve symbolism(black and the non-relishing ,surface ,contrast ,interiority etc.Can't wait to see the Finnissy podcast . Thankyou , your analysis is a great primer till I read the thesises out there .

I don´t love specially Kenny G, but I don´t need to hit him. Many comments basically attacked him for not being Coltrane. That's ridiculous, is like damn Air Supply for not being Led Zeppelin. Kenny G is like Air Supply, easy listening music, music for have a good time, not for being evaluated under music school analysis, just for have fun if you like it.

as you’re wanting to know of any composers or performers that are into Kenny G - Robert Glasper is a big one that I know of … and he definitely doesn’t weite ‘surface level’ music in any way … ?

I was tempted to skip this one. I am glad I watched. Good job!

I dunno. I love Kenny G, but I also love Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Brubeck, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, but also David Sanborn, Spyro Gyra, the Ripping tons, etc.

Kenny G is the antidepressant of music. It doesn't feel bad, it doesn't feel good. It's benign. It's the color of institutional walls. It's the white part of a hard boiled egg. I could imagine using it as musical wallpaper in the hallway for about 30 seconds.

Kenny G=Musical Wallpaper

"Ruthlessly antiseptic." Poor Kenny.

Wayne Shorter has an instantly recognizable sound on soprano sax. But unlike Kenny G, I enjoy listening to him for more than three seconds.

360p? Yay!