In fact for the longest time, the Grammy Awards didn't have a category for the smooth jazz music being played in the radio format. Their awards went primarily to traditional jazz performers. So Benny Carter would win the Grammy, while Kenny G didn't. Of course it was around the same time that a lot of the music being played on the radio was being overlooked at the recording industry awards.
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And the most debated radio format is...
- Thread starter DMK
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In fact for the longest time, the Grammy Awards didn't have a category for the smooth jazz music being played in the radio format. Their awards went primarily to traditional jazz performers. So Benny Carter would win the Grammy, while Kenny G didn't. Of course it was around the same time that a lot of the music being played on the radio was being overlooked at the recording industry awards.
Ah, just like the Oscars, which rewards films principally on the basis of the fewest people having seen them at actual theaters.
I had several experiences as a member of the jury or panel for a couple of international song competitions in Latin America, such as the OTI Festival that address this subject:
In one OTI competition I was one of 7 judges. I was a radio manager and programmer, the others were well known composers, musicians and music critics. In that round, of a dozen songs, only one seemed to me to have large commercial (i.e. "audience") appeal, and I scored it a 10, while everyone else gave it 2's and 3's as being to "formula" or "too common". The songs the rest of them loved, I thought were show-off, over-orchestrated songs with lyrics nobody but another poet could love.
The song I scored high went on to be a national hit. The others got just about zero airplay.
Back to the point: to listeners, that music was smooth jazz. To an accomplished jazz musician, it is not. To the awards ceremonies, it was not. It's the institutional perspective vs. the taste of music consumers.
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kevtronics
Star Participant
"Going mainstream" is the kiss of death for an artist among hardcore Jazz fans. For example, Al Jarreau lost his jazz fans when he started having pop hits. Many jazz artists shun radio or TV interviews because they don't want the exposure. So even if the Grammys did have a "smooth jazz" category, many of the artists would refuse to have their music called that.
There never was a smooth jazz Grammy, because that was the name of a radio format, not a genre of music. Just as there is no CHR Grammy or AC Grammy.
But in 1992, they started to award a Contemporary Jazz Grammy, as distinguished from traditional jazz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Contemporary_Jazz_Album
This was many years after the music itself became popular. The artists who were making this music were very happy to have their music acknowledged.
kevtronics
Star Participant
"Contemporary Jazz" is fine. But my point is that many Jazz artists considered referring to their music as "smooth jazz" to be an insult.
In fact, Billboard didn't have a Smooth Jazz chart until the late '00s I think...and most major-market stations were flipping formats! Allen Kepler still does that Smooth Jazz Top 20, IIRC. Surprised there wasn't a countdown back in the 1990s when the format was at its heyday.
SuperRadioFan
Star Participant
I will guess those two are Instant Replay-Dan Hartman and MacArthur Park-Donna Summer's big hit cover;;; I recognized a few more than that
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