Talk:Smooth jazz

Overemphasis on specific radio stations

The content of this article does not follow the standard of similar articles; such as Jazz and R&B, where the musical genre itself is explained, historically quantified, and where musical excerpts and examples are provided. The article does not even help one understand the fork, or split, that separates this music from Contemporary or Elevator Music. Instead, it ponders long upon the specific radio stations where the genre was aired. It appears that a more thoughtful edit by a qualified Musicologist is greatly needed. -- Curley Wolf (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Split

The radio format has been split to Smooth jazz radio as that is a different subject. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 21:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

"The bland sound of Kenny G"

Until we can invent a system that evaluates music for a scientifically-agreed upon quantification of its "blandness," it should be made clear that this is critical evaluation, and not an objective truth. PaulCHebert (talk) 18:33, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

A pair of quotes would do the trick. Lots of sources say that Kenny G's smooth jazz sound was bland. The cited source, Ted Gioia, says "blandness". Binksternet (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and he's a critic giving a subjective evaluation. PaulCHebert (talk) 19:52, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Not the only critic! In case it's needed, here are more sources for Kenny G smooth jazz blandness. Binksternet (talk) 19:55, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• Trusting God, Talking Oprah, New York Post. "'Not Easily Broken' is as bland as the Kenny G-style smooth jazz its hero listens to..."
• Kenny G: Good Humor Man, Jazz Times. "The downturn in smooth jazz, G maintains, has to do with the airwaves becoming overloaded with very bland music, made in some cases by second- or third-tier emulators of Kenny G-'people who didn’t deserve to be on the radio,' he charges. It’s ironic given that G himself has been denounced, most famously by Pat Metheny, for personifying blandness or worse."
• Jazz FM Gets Its Groove Back, Guardian. "Some instrumentalists have made more determined efforts to 'cross over' to what US radio formats variously call 'smooth jazz' or 'the wave': Kenny G and Peter White make bland instrumentals with a 'jazzy flavour.'"
• The Top 20 Whitest Musicians of All Time, LA Weekly. "...sure, Kenny G aims to roughly approximate jazz, but in truth he made an entire generation hate the genre with his customer-service-on-hold-style saxophone."
• Masters of Jazz Saxophone, "Crossover and Smooth Jazz" by Kevin Alexander. "Kenny G – King of the smooth jazz airwaves... Despite this commercial success, however, his recordings have received much critical derision over the years, with the attacks mainly aimed at the bland and unchallenging nature of the music."
• Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. "Soprano saxophonist Kenny G (born Kenneth Gorelick in Seattle, Washington) led the way in making smooth jazz a major force within the record industry. Although considered a purveyor of bland, sentimental fare by jazz purists and critics, he nevertheless sold more than 30 million albums through 2000..."
• International Herald Tribune, July 26, 2000, "Portrait: Kenny G. From Ice Capades to Web Controversy" by Mike Zwerin. "Critics describe his music as bland, sappy, shallow, soporific, and boring. Some people call it 'yuppie jazz.'"

Yes. I agree that there are a number of critics whose subjective evaluations of the music is that it is bland. That is why I rephrased the relevant portion of the article to reflect that. PaulCHebert (talk) 20:04, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree that Binksternet has been making a lot of POV edits to this article lately, changing the definition to suit his/her POV and cherry-picking references. Perhaps this should be brought to attention to more users to get a wider non-biased consensus. ANDROS¹³³⁷_TALK 23:03, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

That's not what PaulCHebert said. It's just you who thinks I am not making neutral edits. You are certainly welcome to bring the question of neutrality to a larger number of editors. They will notice that I have brought in details and definitions from a couple of musicology books, removing the big ugly tags that said more references were needed. In your nearly 14 years of editing this article, you have not once cited a reference. So I'm pretty sure that it's not me that's the problem here. Binksternet (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, my only issue with Binksternet's edits was not putting something like "many critics" before the term "bland," and I believe we've come to an agreement on that issue. I never accused him of POV editing. PaulCHebert (talk) 00:50, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Musicology books I don't consider a reliable source, since they are bound to be influenced by purists. Plus, there are a lot of smooth jazz musicians who play trumpet, piano, flute, and bass guitar. Please read WP:BLUESKY. ANDROS¹³³⁷_TALK 23:49, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

If you don't like scholarly books as references, then you are turning away from Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Scholars define the topics they write about. Scholarly books are the best sources available. Binksternet (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Instruments listed in the infobox

The instruments parameter in the infobox should list the more important instruments popularly associated with the genre, not an exhaustive list. Ideally, these instruments will be supported with reliable sources mentioning them. I included sax, guitar and synths because these are mentioned most often in the sources. To help figure out what else might be put into the instruments parameter, let's list sources below. I'll start. Binksternet (talk) 23:59, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• "Explore: Smooth Jazz". AllMusic. Archived from the original on March 6, 2011. Retrieved April 15, 2018.
  • This source lists "synthesizers, lite-funk rhythms, lite-funk bass, elastic guitars, and either trumpets, alto, or soprano saxophones."

Terms like "lite-funk" and "elastic guitars" are not really a sign of competent or informed musical analysis. What the fuck is an "elastic guitar."?!?!PaulCHebert (talk) 00:56, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not saying that AllMusic's genre guide is well-written and definitive, I'm just including it because we have been using it as a reference for years, and it lists smooth jazz instruments. Binksternet (talk) 16:32, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• Tracie Ratiner writes in Contemporary Musicians: Profiles of the People in Music, page 154, "The use of drum machines and synthesizers came to prominence during the decade, especially in the 'smooth jazz' genre identified with [Marcus] Miller's collaborator, David Sanborn." Binksternet (talk) 16:54, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Sub-lousy

It's just not a very good article. I would say delete it, but that would evoke a response from certain people who think they are saving baby seals.
Vmavanti (talk) 19:33, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. I agree the article is not very good, but the notability of the genre seems to warrant a standalone article based on Wikipedia notability guidelines. ANDROS¹³³⁷_TALK 16:58, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

So you think a bad article is better than no article?
–Vmavanti (talk) 01:33, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Of course. It's a notable topic. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not living in this universe. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:00, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

That's absurd.Vmavanti (talk) 13:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

This discussion is "I'm right, you're wrong."

If the topic is notable, Wikipedia should have an article on it. If you feel it is not a notable topic, follow the directions at Articles for Deletion. (Poor quality is not an acceptable reason to delete an article.)

If you feel the article is of poor quality, improve it. If there is poorly written material, re-write it. If there are unreliable sources, remove them. If there is unsourced material, find and add sources, add "citation needed tags" or remove the material. If there are sources that are not included but should be, add them. If, after all of that you feel there is not sufficient sourced material available to write a reasonably detailed article on the subject, take it to AfD (see above). - SummerPhD^v2.0 18:15, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, no. It isn't "I'm right, you're wrong". Do you object to Talk pages being used for Talk? I don't. You don't need to quote rules to me. Talk is the heart of Wikipedia. Every article has a Talk page. Every user has Talk page. Every time a signature is used, the word "talk" appears next to it. Talk pages are everywhere. If you don't object to Talk, then do you object to what's being said? I agree dumb things have been said. When someone says something dumb, it ought to be refuted. I can do that. When someone insults me by accusing me of being so dumb that I must live in another universe, I am going to refute that. I'm not a doormat. You want to lie down while people attack you? Go ahead.

Why is no article better than a bad article? There are many ways an article can be bad. It can have the wrong information. It can have unsourced information. It can have biased information. It can be disorganized. The grammar and spelling can be wrong. The diction can be full of slang and slapdash usage. The article can have many templates slapped on them. There might be a sea of red links. It can be ugly. All of these harm readers. They lead readers in the wrong direction. They help no one. They fail to provide readers with good information. No information is better than bad information, just as a doctor doing harm is worse than a doctor who does nothing. Hippocrates thought so.
–Vmavanti (talk) 21:53, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

This is an article talk page. It is for discussing improvements to the associated article. If you disagree, feel free to suggest changes to Wikipedia's behavioral guidelines.

Bad articles can be improved. Deleted articles cannot. If you feel the article should be deleted, go ahead and take it to WP:AfD.

If you feel the article should be improved, feel free to either work on that or suggest improvements. - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:02, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

That's what we were doing. Discussing the article. When was that ever in doubt? There's no need to play the scold. "Bad articles can be improved" misses the points I made. Speaking realistically rather than theoretically, bad articles often do not get improved or deleted. What then? Nothing. The damage is done. It sits there for years and makes everyone look bad, doing more harm than good. My comments are practical and real. Not idealistic, not theoretical. I have no more feelings about this article than I do any other. It's one thing that makes me a good editor.
–Vmavanti (talk) 02:27, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussing the article is not discussing improvements to the article. Do you have anything to say about improving the article? - SummerPhD^v2.0 03:33, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

What's so horrible about it that it should actually be deleted? It might be a little light on content (partly because Smooth jazz radio was spun out from it) but I can't see how it's such a horrid article inherently that you feel it'd be better missing from Wikipedia completely. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:59, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

It is extraordinarily rare that an article is deleted based on quality. Wikipedia's policy on the matter is clear: "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." Wikipedia:Deletion policy If anyone harbors any doubts about this, taking the page to Articles for Deletion would quickly resolve the issue.

I've made a few simple improvements to the article. It's now of limited scope, but provides a reasonable summary of the topic. I personally won't be building much here. I lived through the heyday of "smooth jazz" and feel no desire whatsoever to learn more about it. - SummerPhD^v2.0 15:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Off-topic chat

A Talk page is for talk. We don't have to limit ourselves to some kind of Mary Poppins smiley face "you can only use the Talk page to suggest positive improvements". I don't know where you got that idea. That puts chains on the discussion. Talk pages are for discussion. I'm not afraid of allowing people the freedom to talk. Let's not censor them. If they say helpful things, good. If they stupid things, OK. I can address either. I would rather they be allowed to speak freely rather than terrorized into monitoring their words. Nevertheless, in a broader sense, everything I have said can be put in the context of improving the article. Sometimes starting from scratch is best way to go. –Vmavanti (talk) 14:41, 8 October 2019 (UTC) If anyone has been saying to editors, IP or otherwise, "you can only suggest improvements on Talk pages", that's wrong and unnecessarily discouraging and censorious. The reason ALL Talk pages say "this page is for discussing improvements to the article" is to contrast discussion about the article with discussion about the subject. In the latter, Talk pages devolve into "is this true" debates or "this is an important subject in the world, so Wikipedia should cover it" or "this cause or this person is important and therefore Wikipedia ought to cover it." It becomes like any other debate you see on TV or the internet. Such comments don't address what's right or wrong about an article. Let me repeat this until it sinks in: As long as you are discussing the article, your comments are welcome here. Use as your guide the text itself. When you read between the lines, you go astray. When you start to think things like "But I like this" or "But this is important" you go astray. –Vmavanti (talk) 15:09, 8 October 2019 (UTC) The consensus notice I have just added to your talk page explains, in part, "talk pages such as Talk:Smooth jazz are for discussion related to improving the article in specific ways based on reliable sources and the project policies and guidelines, not for general discussion about the topic or unrelated topics, or statements based on your thoughts or feelings." - SummerPhDv2.0 15:19, 8 October 2019 (UTC)