the.com/smooth jazz
What happens when jazz buys a sportscar and stops asking questions.
means A radio-friendly subgenre of jazz, popular from the 1980s onward, built on mellow melodies, polished production, and easy grooves rather than edgy improvisation.
from "Jazz" itself is a slippery word, surfacing in American slang in the 1910s — originally tied to baseball energy and street vigor before it attached to the new African American music, though its deeper root is genuinely uncertain. "Smooth" comes from Old English "smōth," meaning even and free of roughness. The pairing arose as a marketing label in the late 20th century, when radio programmers needed a word for the frictionless, sanded-down jazz they could play between commercials.
- radio origin
- Format engineered for offices and dentist waiting rooms
- kenny g
- Held one note 45 minutes via circular breathing
- the sax
- Soprano saxophone became its unofficial mascot
- the divide
- Purists call it the genre that betrayed bebop
kenny g — saxophonist with 75+ million albums sold, defined the genre in the 1980s-90s
dave koz — saxophonist with 12 grammy nominations, hosted smooth jazz radio show on sirius xm
contemporary jazz format — radio format established 1980s, still dominant on stations like wdna miami and kism los angeles