The success of ‘Songbird’ proves I was right. “I had always had to push for more instrumentals. He acknowledged that it had felt odd, as a non-singing musician, to have to feature singers to have a fair shot at a hit. “A saxophonist can be just as expressive as a good singer,” Kenny G said. David Sanborn’s rollicking “Chicago Song” has become a staple on pop and black playlists, Najee’s remake of Anita Baker’s soulful “Sweet Love” made a respectable showing on the R&B and jazz charts and Madhouse, a group composed of Prince’s cohorts, got heavy black radio airplay in the beginning of the year with “Six,” a saxophone-spiced jam. While it isn’t often that a jazz-oriented instrumental earns enough radio airplay to become a hit, there have been other exceptions to the rule this year-and they’ve all been by saxophonists. Not only will he perform Sunday as part of the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, but he also is scheduled to headline two nights at the Universal Amphitheatre in November. The saxophonist was once part of R&B /jazz keyboardist Jeff Lorber’s Fusion and also played with Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra and has done stage work in the bands of Diahann Carroll, Liberace and the Mills Brothers. “Duotones,” produced by Preston Glass and Narada Michael Walden (both best known for their recent hit-making prowess with Kenny G’s labelmates Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin) is his fourth album, but the first to go gold (sales of 500,000). Indeed, it is looking like a new life for Kenny G. “The song represents the start of a new life to me. This record really broke the rules,” Kenny G said in a recent phone interview from Cincinatti, noting that the piece was inspired by a decision to make the move from Seattle, his birthplace, to Los Angeles.
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“I’d always thought that if I had a hit with an instrumental, that it would either be a dance tune or taken from a movie score. His label, Arista Records, he claimed, had “pushed for more vocals on ‘Duotones.’ ” That the biggest hit on that album would be the gently melodic, yuppie-jazz-oriented “Songbird,” was a shock, he admitted.
While he had racked up modest hits in the past, including the 1984 Kashif-produced “Hi, How Ya Doin’ ” and last year’s remake of Junior Walker’s “What Does It Take to Win Your Love,” both were funky, dance tunes featuring black R&B singers.
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Nobody was more surprised than R&B /jazz saxophonist Kenny G (ne Gorelick) when “Songbird,” a soothingly airy instrumental from his current “Duotones” album, cracked Billboard’s Top 20 pop chart-and subsequently became the biggest hit of his career.
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