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Smooth jazz. Smooth jazz is a term used to describe commercially oriented crossover jazz music. Although often described as a "genre", it is a debatable and highly controversial subject in jazz music circles. As a radio format, however, it is clear that smooth jazz became the successor to easy listening music on radio station programming in the ...
- 1970s, United States
Feb 8, 2024 · These were the founding fathers of what we now know as smooth jazz. Their work suffered from the tyranny of expectation. Many hardcore jazz fans expected fast, loud, and complex. But those who ...
- Charles Waring
It’s fitting that the west coast was the birthplace in 1987 of the first “smooth jazz” station, KTWV in Los Angeles, 94.7 THE WAVE, home of all sorts of laid-back grooves since the very beginning of jazz and pop. Other stations would soon follow suit, reaching a height of popularity in 1994, when Kenny G won ...
An outgrowth of soul jazz (1960s) and jazz fusion (1970s), smooth jazz arose and gained prominence in the late 1980s when record labels experimented with new approaches to further expand the audience for jazz. Smooth jazz artists draw inspiration and repertoire from easy listening pop music and R&B ballads. Influenced by the jazz fusion styles ...
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Jul 6, 2023 · July 6, 2023. The music played on smooth-jazz stations—personified, then as now, by Kenny G—was regarded as hopelessly uncool. Photograph by Tommaso Boddi / Getty. Whenever I’m asked to ...
A graduate of the University of Illinois, he was the first Smooth Jazz personality in Chicago hosting “The Sunday Lite Brunch” on the popular WCLR in early 1987 before moving to the city’s first and only full-time New Adult Contemporary station WNUA in 1989. It was at WNUA, during a focus group that the name "Smooth Jazz" was born.
Smooth jazz is a fusion of jazz and easy-listening music, causing it to embrace jazz instruments and musicality while also being widely accessible. Many consider it a commercially-oriented venture, as the softer sound appeals to a far broader audience than some of the more feverish jazz subgenres. Overall, smooth jazz tends to be downtempo.
