Don’t feel sorry for Kenny G. While it’s true that he is the most mocked, if not the most reviled, musician of the past 25years, he is also the best-selling instrumentalist of all time. Kenny has a big house, beautiful kids and adoring fans. Also, Kenny G never, ever gets mad. Dude may be the most mentally healthy person in his field.
At least it seems so from the good natured, eye-opening documentary, Listening to Kenny G.
Director Penny Lane gets up close and personal with the frizzy haired high school band nerd who had no control over the final cut of this most personal of docs. In other words, after everything he’s been through, he doesn’t care if the film tries to make him the butt of the joke. In fact, He is so in on the joke that it turns out the haters are the ones who seem, at least in this film, kind of petty, snooty, too cool to give the guy his due.
That’s okay, though-75 million records sold is its own brand of protective underwear. Michael Bolton and Nickelback have pairs just like it.
And Lane does give the intellectuals almost equal time to describe what is wrong with a guy who basically had a radio format genre named after his stuff: Smooth Jazz. But Kenny never said his million selling albums were Jazz, smooth or otherwise (radio programmers and focus groups came up with that damnable phrase that has incorrectly been applied to everyone from Steely Dan to Stevie Wonder).
No, what Kenny G has said is that his music may be all of those things, or may be none of them. It’s true that he is a Jazz guy himself, a student and fan of all the same legends that the intellectuals revere. He just does what he does.
The film shows a super healthy ego. You know who likes Kenny G’s music? Kenny G does, that’s who. In the recording studio, as he listens back to his stuff, he is well pleased with what he’s done, and when he is not pleased, he does it over…and over…and over again until he is satisfied. He says that he has always put out music that he himself was happy with, and that’s why he has no regrets.
Look, I hate Songbird as much as the next person, but I have met him on two occasions, one at a gig of his that I was working on – and of all the people who could have a chip on their shoulder and be a dick, he was the opposite; kind, super smart, conversational and very accommodating.
Am I suddenly a fan of his music? Honestly, I am not. But two things: the guy’s chops are undeniable, and the world would be a chiller place to live if people had the same positive sense of self and good will toward others that Kenny Gorelick has.
Listening to Kenny G | 3 ½ stars out of 4 | on HBO/HBO Max December 3rd/ Reviewed by Kyle Osborne
