Smooth Jazz Quotes

Kenny Burrell that's the sound I'm looking for.

When my friends were listening to hip-hop or R&B, I was in the crib listening to Billy Joel and Michael Bolton, Luther Vandross, and Oscar Peterson.

Hey, look at this guy Kenny G. with his thing, walking up and down the aisles of the concert hall and running off the stage and playing the same time. It's old hat!

I love Marvin Gaye. I like jazz and all that stuff.

To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.

Larry Carlton is an incredibly versatile guitarist who has been a major force for guitar for many years. He is easily recognizable - all you have to do is hear him once and from that point on you'll be a fan, just like me. It gives me great pleasure to extend congratulations to Larry on his 2011 George Benson Lifetime Achievement Award. Congratulations !

George Benson's 'This Masquerade' is my favorite version of Leon Russell's blue gem.

And if I ever DO see [Kenny G] anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind, and maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.

I like mellow music. I like some jazz. But I'm not a big hard rock guy.

Most of us remember Nat King Cole as a vocalist. His warm, grainy baritone is still so closely identified with such familiar ballads as 'Stardust' and 'The Christmas Song' that it's hard to imagine anyone else performing them.

Paul Desmond sounds like a female alcoholic.

I'm a hip-hop kind of guy, but to be honest with you, I could listen to R&B all day. Give me some slow jams, and I'm a happy person.

I've been a jazz artist playing pop and R&B my entire career.

I began writing with a Michael Buble mentality. I think he's fantastic, and it's the perfect music for any date night, ever.

Kenny G, I have to be grateful to him for proving that the instrument can be played all different kinds of ways.

I always thought East L.A. music was so dreamy and languid and kinda greasy.

I want to be what Kenny G. and Carlos Santana were, but for this day and age.

I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.

I remember walking into a department store and you would hear an instrumental version of a Beatles song and it was usually kinda cheesy and very un-rock. Kenny G, for example, is a musician that I certainly dont want to sound like, but technically he is flawless but somehow the rock and roll aspect has been sucked out of it.

I love my slow jams.

I like [George] Benson because I just like it. I like that kind of style. I don't like the broken up kind of style. I don't like where you play for 16 bars and then break it up into what somebody's version of what birds twittering sounds like, or what the sound of the city is, or what New York sounds like.

My sound is sort of India Arie meets Colbie Caillat. It's got a sweet-funk to it.

From the R&B side, I've always been a huge Brian McKnight fan. He's just as talented as it gets vocally, and as a musician. I think it'd be real cool to do something with him.

Basically, coming up, listening to Cash Money and Master P, and my mother would listen to Sade and Erykah Badu, things like that. I didn't like that music back then, but now, I guess, to look for soothing music or tones, you know, I would look to that, and I would love to do something with Sade or Erykah Badu.

The whole rise of new adult contemporary music and smooth jazz was a nice surprise.