New article - Listening to Kenny G: Jazz, Perfectionism, and People-Pleasing

21st September 2025

Browsing a forum thread on the topic of “Musicians you hate to admit you like”, I was reminded of the phenomenon that is Kenny G. It got me thinking about my relationship with him and jazz, and his own relationship with jazz. After having the good ol’ peruse of Wikipedia, I found out that a documentary on him was released in 2021 where he had no creative input over, so I thought I’d give it a watch to get to know him a little bit more.

I don’t remember what form my first brush with Kenny G was in. Maybe my saxophone teacher talked about him in my first few years of learning the instrument and recommended some songs to me. I mentioned him to my other music teacher and he said that he hated Kenny because he bastardised “real jazz”. Of course, since I looked up to this guy and was still figuring out my identity in the world, I parroted this opinion without much critical thought. After putting some distance between me and my musical past, I came to the conclusion that even though Kenny G chooses not to play “real jazz”, he’s still a skilled musician in his own right. He can 100% play bebop if he wants to, but he doesn’t. He just does his own thing.

But then I wondered if my biases against jazz critics were coming into play. My music teacher isn’t the only one who thinks Kenny G is a stain on the name of jazz – pretty much every expert in the genre would say the same thing. They’re notorious for being snobby and elitist – if you can’t play a D#maj7aug9°11 chord while suspended upside down from a trapeze, your musical ability may as well be on par with that of someone with cerebral palsy. I’m not denying that jazz is a complex art form that takes years to master - of course it is. It’s just that the average critic’s disdain for what the normies are into clouds their perception. Normies just want something that sounds nice - something understandable, digestable, and easy. Is it the easiness of listening that offends jazz critics? Kenny G’s music has been compared to wallpaper, background noise, the ambience of a dentist’s waiting room, and the claustrophobia of an elevator. But jazz critics forget that normies won’t understand why John Coltrane’s song “Giant Steps” is so complex to improvise over, and appreciate the different renditions appropriately. Give them free jazz and give them “Songbird”, and they’ll choose the latter 9 times out of 10, maybe 8 to be really optimistic.

Well, no matter your opinion on him, this documentary has something for everyone. In “Listening to Kenny G”, Penny Lane gives us a look at Kenny G’s opinions on music and his critics, and takes a look back at his career. There are interviews with both his supporters and detractors, including the aforementioned jazz experts.

My personal highlight of the documentary was actually the career retrospective. I had no idea his earlier albums before “Duotones” had him doing more R&B, funk and post-disco type stuff. He even collaborated with Kashif. Kenny has said that he hates these songs because it wasn’t his sound, but these albums are exactly my sound. His self-titled debut album and G-Force are absolutely amazing hidden gems. But aside from that, a close second highlight would be the analysis of his music, both by himself, jazz critics, and his fans.

Right off the bat, Penny asks “What do you love about music?” Kenny responds, “I don’t know if I love that music that much,” and says that he loves the practice that goes into creating and perfecting a song. But then we see him in the studio recording music, and making many edits to a single take to get it just right – a note changed here, half a note spliced here. There wasn’t much discussion on this point, but I would imagine jazz purists would not be happy. All in one take is the only way. The imperfections are part of the charm.

In spite of this, perfectionism is the name of the game when it comes to Kenny G, and I found this was one of two major themes throughout the movie. There are B-roll scenes of him constantly practicing the sax. When he’s asked to write a quote on the wall of his former high school, he worries about writing the perfect quote. He tries to perfect his social media presence, having posted memes in the 2010s in an attempt to go viral and popular. He even obsesses over perfecting his CHORES.

Let’s confront the million dollar question - is Kenny G’s music really jazz? Kenny himself refuses to put a label on it, preferring listeners to define it themselves. Kenny’s music pioneered the radio format of “smooth jazz”, so in a way you could argue that it is a type of jazz. Regardless, the critics featured in the movie refuse to call it as such, and outline their reasons why. Kenny’s music rarely deviates from the standard pop pentatonic scale, and hardly ever employs chords more complex than a seventh. Polyrhythms and syncopation are almost never to be found. The jazz trademark of a “call and response”, where someone plays a motif for a bar or two and another person “responds” with a derivative or their own motif? Nope, Kenny G himself is front and center, the one and only star, playing a singular melody all the way through. I distinctly remember one mentioning that Kenny G had a rich history to build off, but he chooses to do nothing with it.

So what was Kenny G’s goal? It seems to be that he was just making music that he likes, and fair enough. But was there an ulterior motive? “They think I wrote these songs to get rich and famous. If only I was that smart!” Cut to him flying his personal plane over Seattle. Now I don’t know if that truly was his end goal, but I did find the choice to follow that quote up with that scene funny.

Another point that was hammered home by the film was that Kenny G is a people pleaser. He appears to be a little insecure about the criticisms levelled against him, and refrains from bashing people. While this is an admirable quality of his, it has the unintended effect of making him seem like he’s devoid of feeling. For a little context, Kenny G did a “duet” with Louis Armstrong on the song “What A Wonderful World”. Of course, Louis was long dead by this time, so Kenny recorded his part over the original recording. He gained permission from Louis’s estate, but jazz critics were furious nonetheless. Paul Methany, a jazz guitarist, wrote a pretty heavy-handed essay that became a popular email forward. After being asked about his feelings it, Kenny says he wasn’t mad at all. In fact, he “never gets mad”. Come on dude, weren’t you at least a little hurt? He’s also seen as eager to please director Penny. He asks her if he should change his clothes for the interview, and spends a whole minute asking if she’s pleased with his answers. Just before he walks into his former high school, he tells Penny “I should walk in with the sax, it’s more iconic.” Penny concedes. Woven into the movie is a Kenny G performance. We see that he has started to incorporate proper jazz into his performances. Which I derive to mean that he is hurt by the criticism and has taken some of the advice. After all, he claims it is his “duty” to introduce those who don’t listen to jazz to the greats.

Overall, I found this movie to be an interesting dive into those that love and loathe Kenny G. Regardless of what critics say, millions of people around the world enjoy his music. One critic notes that in heavily lambasting his music, we’re also denying the experiences that others have had with it. People have gotten married to his music after all. The movie was also a great insight into the man himself – the perfectionist and people pleaser, a man who doesn’t love music that much but can supposedly create magic. Well, aside from his post-Duotones repertoire, consider me enchanted.