Sensuous Sax

Smooth jazz ballad, especially when played with saxophone, has long been associated with the image of a couple having sex. Perhaps that's because a lot of movies have employed this cliche. And there is a whole series of recordings that uses this as the theme, at least for the cover, where there are always a man and a woman in intimate positions. It is not actually all the typical "movie sex themed" music. For example, I just listened to his cover of Pink Floyd's classic, "Us and Them", from "Sensuous Sax: The Kiss." This version could still be considered "sexy" but in a different way.

By the way, it was interesting how I came across this series: I was writing about smooth jazz and the established musicians like Marion Meadows. When I checked out his discography on Rhapsody, I found a "Sensuous Sax: Sensation", which listed him, Kenny Geoffrey and Dan Pickering on the cover as the featured musicians. However, this album cannot be found on his discography elsewhere. In fact, most other albums in the series are under the name of one "Le Valedon" which is a very mysterious artist. I just can't find any bio of this person. Some of those albums listed "Compose" as the label. And I tracked it down to "Peter Pan Music" which seemed to be the parent company. That's all info I have on this series.

So, why am I so interested? I want to play like Le Valedon! Seriously, his playing is no doubt very crowd-pleasing, especially to the female audience I suppose, with all these familiar melodies, in a quite romantic mood. In the last 8 years jazz was my main focus and I played a set of the most popular jazz standards at our high school reunion. The question I got the most was: can you play something people know? (And when does your song end.)

Smooth jazz revival?

Several years ago there were many articles written about the "death" of smooth jazz, like this one and this one in 2010 that talked about Chicago's WLFM trying to fill the void left by the former smooth jazz station WNUA. Well, WLFM switched to alternative rock in 2012 too, according to this site. FYI, these folks has created

a Chicago-based, Chicago-targeted, Chicago-driven Smooth Jazz-formatted digital station available through the internet.

I listened via this link. It's alive and kicking. The playlist was similar to the "old school smooth jazz radio station", i.e, a mix of vocal and instrumentals. As I mentioned before, I am not a big fan of smooth jazz vocal. And I found a few interesting fact about it here:

The goal of every radio station, says WQCD operations manager John Mullen is to be heard. "The bulk of music is smooth jazz - so out of 10 or 12 songs, the majority will have an instrumental, jazzy texture. So if we throw in a vocal, maybe to add a little spice or to bring in a few people who are not jazz fans to our radio station, it's our way of getting people who have never tried us to try us."

Oddly enough, instrumentalists often find their songs have a tougher time at jazz/AC radio if they have vocals on them. "I had a song called 'Body Language' with vocals by Shai that got to No.6 on the adult R&B chart, but it didn't get as high on the jazz/AC chart because of the vocals," says James.

He adds that another single, "All Night Long," featured a background vocal hook, while an all-instrumental version of the song was featured on the Japanese release of the album. "When Warner Bros. in the U.S. sent out the CD promo, they included both the instrumental and the vocal version, and the instrumental version was the most popular one here. The stations are playing vocals, vocals, vocals from other people, but when an instrumentalist comes along with one, they won't play it."

Actually, my indicator of its revival is the live performances here in the SF bay area. Looks like it's part of the "new direction" of Yoshi's, which traditionally booked mainly "traditional" jazz musicians but I have been to quite a few smooth jazz performances in the past year, including Peter White, Michael Lington, Jessy J...... I know Najee has played recently. Mindi Abair and Brian Culbertson are coming up in Sept and Oct. I hope this change helps Yoshi's business (Yeah, I still count on them booking those traditional jazz cats)