The Big Green House

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

 

Death of the cool

I am, for the most part, of the “live and let live” school of thought when it comes to musical preferences. I may not care much for the tunes that turn you on, but I will respect your right to listen to whatever it is that you like. ‘Twas not always so, but age and laziness have mellowed me a bit.

Except when it comes to “smooth jazz”. That shit has got to go. You know what I’m talking about – it’s that syrupy goo that oozes out of the speakers in bank lobbies and dentist’s offices across this once proud nation. Smooth jazz is a semantically null phrase. To my understanding, jazz is meant to push both artist and listener, not to provide innocuous background burble.

You want to know why the rest of the world hates us? It’s partly due to horrible foreign policy, of course, but I think the lion’s share of the blame goes to the fact that our record companies foist this crap on a jazz-hungry world. Americans invented jazz! How can we have let things slide so badly that this hideous treacle not only passes for the real thing, but it gets lapped up like the cream in a contented kitty’s bowl?

I’m no jazz expert, by any kind of measurement. My exposure has been fairly limited, but I know what I like & this ain’t it. There’s so many real jazz artists out there: Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter… just to name a few. Why settle for the likes of Dave Koz and Kenny G? Those two are to real jazz as “nachos Flanders’-style” is to authentic Mexican cuisine. Do not accept false goods, people.

Let me put it to you this way: back in the early 1990’s, for various reasons I won’t go into here, I went through a fairly long period without, ah, female companionship. (You can stop snickering now. Don’t try & tell me that you’ve never had a drought.) One of the women I worked with expressed a small amount of interest, so I cast aside my firm “no fishing off the company pier” policy and asked for her phone number.

When I called her a couple of days later, we had a nice little chat. Things were going relatively well, up to the point where I asked her what she’d been doing before I called.

“Oh, I was just listening to the radio.”

Really? What station?

“KKSF. It’s my favorite. Well, that and The Quiet Storm”

There was an embarrassed silence on my end of the line. It was as if she’d told me she’d been masturbating to a picture of Pat Sajak. She was a nice person and all, but she was listening to bland jazz and blander “R&B” - The Quiet Storm’s motto at the time was “Soft and Warm”. Just like a loaded diaper.

Needless to say, we never went out.

Yes, I gave up the possibility of companionship during an extended drought because of her lousy taste in music. That either makes me shallow or discerning. You be the judge.

bmarkey 12/17/2003 08:53:00 PM