Listening to Kenny G

Year 14, Day 219 - 8/7/22 - Movie #4,219

BEFORE: Just five documentaries left in the chain after this one, but I'm still spacing them out so I don't have a big 2-week gap in September, ideally.  So I should be done with the Summer Rock & Doc Block in just about a week - and the theme for the last week is going to be "Entertainers & Politicians" - which kind of works because I think when this is over, I'll have two new co-champions with more appearances this year than Nicolas Cage, and one of them was an entertainer, and the other was a politician. They're both very likely to turn up in any documentary about the 1960's through 1980's. 

Oprah Winfrey carries over from "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain". It's kind of cheating, I know, because simply everybody has been on Oprah's show at some point, so who's surprised when two documentaries show their subject with her?  It's an easy link, no doubt - but I also get the satisfaction of knowing that if Anthony Bourdain were still around, he'd totally hate the idea of putting the documentary about Kenny G next to the one about him. Sorry, Tony, but you don't get to complain about this sort of thing any more.  

THE PLOT: An examination of the most popular instrumentalist of all time, Kenny G, and why he is polarizing to so many. 

AFTER: I'm now done with every movie that got signed to HBO's "Music Box" series that I wanted to see - I had no interest in the documentary about DMX, I just stuck to the ones that interested me. Well, sort of. I'm not really a Kenny G fan, so he's kind of on the cusp of who I'll watch a documentary about - provided he's lived a fascinating enough life, that is.  I didn't really know much about, say, Dick Gregory or Tiny Tim or Elaine Stritch until I took the time to watch their biographical docs - it's been an educational month-plus, that's for sure.  But is Kenny G a diverse enough person to hold my interest for 97 minutes?  For me, that's a big no. 

I don't feel much of a connection to his music, and it turns out I'm not alone - the music experts interviewed here don't think much of his music because it's not straight jazz, it's not really pop, and it certainly isn't rock, so what is it?  It's kind of it's own thing, what later came to be called "Smooth Jazz" by the people who name radio formats, and they built that format around HIS music.  The name came from a woman in a focus group who claimed to hate jazz, but she liked Kenny G because it was so smooth - that led to the A-HA moment in the marketing department, and for years Smooth Jazz was the music of choice for office buildings and dentist offices around the nation.  Mr. G's music is even bigger in China, where they play his song "Going Home" as the official song of closing businesses for the day, it's nearly mandatory to have that instrumental played, instead of a bell or a whistle, at closing time, signalling to all the workers it's time to stop working and pack up.  Yes, whether it's a factory or a shopping mall, nothing clears people out like playing Kenny G music - that seems about right.  

Kenny himself didn't really know this when he played in China, and accidentally played "Going Home" midway through a concert, and according to him, a fair number of people recognized the song, thought this meant that the concert was over and headed for the exits.  Umm, sure, Kenny, that's why half the crowd left your show early, if it makes you feel better to tell yourself that.  Now, what's the reason why people in America do the same thing?  Right, to beat the crowds and get out of the parking lot faster, sure. 

Kenny G also has a pretty high opinion of his own music, I get that, but I wonder why they didn't find more people to interview who also hold his compositions in high regard.  It makes me wonder if there are any experts out there who do - traditionally you would expect them to interview people who LIKE the subject of a documentary, not ones who can barely tolerate his music or feel very neutral about it.  One interviewed subject takes things a bit too far, referring to his instrumentals as "masturbation", and I hated it back in film school when people in class used that metaphor for any film they didn't like.  It should be reserved for films that are completely self-indulgent, but my issue with it is that it tries to make masturbation sound like a bad thing, and it's just not - it's sex with someone you care about.  Plus, that seems so archaic and Puritan to have a problem with self-pleasure.  Now, I think what the guy meant was that most jazz is performed by groups, like trios and quartets, where the musicians play off each other, take turns with the solos, and by contrast, Kenny G is just one guy, so therefore if most jazz is like group sex, then his instrumentals are therefore masturbatory.  But still, maybe find a better metaphor that doesn't link something quite pleasurable for many people to the music that you don't like.

His music also has a reputation for evoking emotions, and stories abound about people playing his songs in the background while, umm, in a romantic mood.  These people have never heard of Barry White or Marvin Gaye, I guess. Kenny himself doesn't claim to be that romantic of a person, but he was married twice and he has two sons (college graduates now), so he must have been in love at some point, right?  But this doc doesn't really get into that, it focuses more on record sales than relationships.  And Kenny's side hustles as a golfer and a pilot.  Musician, golfer, pilot, all of those things are somewhat similar in that they require a combination of skills, developed through practice, hard work and determination.  It's one thing to be diverse, but I don't know, it feels like maybe he's TOO diverse, that maybe he takes everything a bit too seriously.  

Still, for a Jewish guy from Seattle who almost went into his father's plumbing business, and studied accounting in college, he's done very well in the music business, despite what the haters say.  It's good to know that at least one high school "band nerd" made a career out of playing the saxophone, even if it took some time and a few different bands before Clive Davis offered him a solo record contract.  (He did play in Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra while still in high school, but that's not mentioned in this documentary.). What's weird is that he's composed many of his own songs, but has to work with professional musicians when it comes to things like chord progressions.  He can work out melodies, but not chords?  I guess that kind of makes sense, when I took a music theory class in junior high I had a similar problem, there were just too many choices, and the teacher couldn't quite explain which ones should follow the others, or maybe I was too dumb to understand it - let's just say it's a tricky thing to learn. 

Kenny G was also an early investor in Starbucks, so between that, record sales, royalties and tour money, he's probably doing quite well financially, and that gives him the freedom to record whatever he wants and collaborate with whoever he wants, so who cares what the critics say?  As you may know I work for an independent animator who's always running out of money, but the saving grace is that he gets to tell whatever story in his animation that he wants, there's no Hollywood studio telling him what the plot needs to be or censoring his content or language - and money does eventually come, sooner or later he'll get an offer to animate this commercial or that pilot project, and that keeps his studio going and keeps me employed - though quite often it's a case of feast or famine, and we're in a famine cycle right now.  Between Kickstarter campaigns and art sales to collectors, occasional royalty checks and money from foreign distributors, we keep the studio in business, but once in a while the insurance gets cancelled or the internet gets turned off, those are the breaks.  But man, it would be nice to work for somebody with a more steady stream of income and not have to worry about that for a while. 

But then there are the REAL Kenny G haters, like jazz musician Pat Metheny, who took issue with him playing a sax solo in a virtual duet with Louis Armstrong on "What a Wonderful World".  Since Kenny G is not a jazz artist, this recording irked a fair number of people who thought it was like spray-painting graffiti on the Mona Lisa, or even worse, some form of cultural appropriation for a white man to earn money and take credit for a recording made years ago by a black artist.  Yeah, that's a tough battle to fight, and probably the best thing to do is not even make that record in the first place, or if you do get away with it, just smile, nod, pick up your check and walk away quickly from any controversy like that. 

There are still worlds left to conquer, Kenny G would love to get back into working on soundtracks, he has done some music for films like "Dying Young" and "The Bodyguard", but he's got bigger plans, and there are some montages in this documentary, pieced together from clips from films like "Twister" and "Schindler's List", that give a suggestion of the stuff he'd like to do for Hollywood, and he's probably standing by the phone waiting for that call.  Hey, I say if Trent Reznor can win two Oscars for doing soundtrack work (for "The Social Network" and "Soul"), so can Kenny G.  Reznor is 75% of the way toward EGOT status, but all Kenny G has is one Grammy.  Hang in there, Kenny!

Also starring Kenny G (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Clive Davis (last seen in "Whitney"), James Gardiner, John Halle, Allen Kepler, Jason King (last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr..: I've Gotta Be Me"), Will Layman, Pat Prescott, Ben Ratliff, Chris Washburne, 

with archive footage of Louis Armstrong (also last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Nat "King" Cole (ditto), Whitney Houston (ditto), Michael Bolton (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Katie Couric (ditto), Tom Cruise (ditto), Craig Ferguson (ditto), Arsenio Hall (ditto), Joan Rivers (ditto), Dana Carvey (last seen in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"), Phil Hartman (ditto), Bill Clinton (last seen in "We Feed People"), Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton (last seen in "Irresistible"), Natalie Cole, John Coltrane, Tony Danza (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Sammy Davis Jr. (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"), Miles Davis, Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Ralph Fiennes (last seen in "The Dig"), Warren G, Stan Getz, Mel Gibson (last seen in "Can We Take a Joke?"), Dizzy Gillespie (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Merv Griffin (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Chris Hardwick, Helen Hunt (last seen in "How It Ends"), Janet Jackson (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Kashif, Jimmy Kimmel (last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie"), Liberace (ditto), Larry King (ditto), Evelyn "Champagne" King, Jay Leno (last seen in "Julia"), Ramsey Lewis, Norm MacDonald (last heard in "Klaus"), Madonna (last seen in "Jagged"), Chuck Mangione, Reba McEntire (last heard in "Spies in Disguise"), Pat Metheny, Mike Myers (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Bill Paxton (last seen in "Haywire"), Katy Perry, Joaquin Phoenix (last seen in "Reservation Road"), Drew Pinsky, Charlie Rose (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Will Smith (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Rod Stewart (last seen in "Tina"), Junior Walker, Dionne Warwick (last seen in "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"), The Weeknd (last seen in "Uncut Gems"), Kanye West (last seen in "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm")

RATING: 5 out of 10 internet challenges