Well just back home from catching Boney James in Ft. Wayne and came away with a mixed reaction.

It seems to me that Boney represents the best and worst of what is smooth jazz today. When the band stuck to doing just instrumental songs they were hot. But they just had to include several songs that had vocals in them and then in my mind brought the band down. Now many in the crowd seem to like them, but not this guy. He would get me mad enough to tell my wife that I would never go to see another show and then come back two or three killer instrumentals and win me back.

While Larry Kimbell on bass does have a good voice the rest of the bunch were just average....as besides I did not pay my 80 bucks for two tickets to here him sing....I came to hear Boney play. Now when Larry broke into this terrific bass solo near the end of the show I went nuts. That is what Cjazz is all about, great up tembo tunes with extended solos by all band members....not watered down r&b vocals.

Overall I really enjoyed myself and would give Boney a B+....if he would leave those vocals back in the studio I rate him an A+.

Of course it did not help that as I pulling into the parking lot the local smooth jazz station WFJZ is playing Mariah Carey...that put me in a less then steller mood.

Well maybe its time for you to find another Sax man.

I've long ago stopped listening to his music. All of my Boney James CDs are now in a shoe box waiting to be sold as seconds.

Another thing would be to find new talent and give em a shot with their concerts and albums.

Joel, I do in fact try to support new talent as much as possible. We have a number of local or reginal talents that I catch when I can and buy cd's when I can as well.

I do not dislike Boney as much as some seem to do, I am just not sure of why he is taking the direction he does. Well let me take that back...I do understand a part of it. The audience in Ft. Wayne was a diverese group, an even mix of afro-american and white....young and old.....male and female. What I noticed was that most of those who seem to really get into the vocals pieces were afro-american. Stands to reason the tunes are r&b. So he is trying to appeal to that audience. Or at least I would assume so.

What I have never understood about the whole vocal thing is no one plays them on the radio and as far as I can tell no one seems to buy the cds for just for the vocals...so what is the purpose? Maybe some of our afro-american board members can shed some light on the whole thing. Do the addition of r&b style vocals to a basicly instruemental work make it more attractive?

But again Joel when Boney and his band stick to the instrumental songs that were great. I really enjoyed them. I am not against r&b songs in fact I have a sizeable colletion, just don't care for them on my jazz cd's.

My opinion..........When I buy a jazz cd or go to a jazz concert, I'm am not expecting to hear ANY vocal tunes at all!! Period!! That particular crowd may have just been an R&B loving crowd and may have just gone to the concert just to get out of the house and hear some live music. Probably not REAL jazz lovers. It happens. My experience at the Capital Jazz Fest (Sunday's show) was that Paul Taylor, Regina Belle and Kirk Whalum all played R&B/Funk style jazz and the crowd loved it and when the Rippingtons came on, the crowd wasn't quite as enthusiastic due to the different style of music although they 'Ripped' big time.

Okay, I am a real jazz lover, but I love jazz vocals, I do buy CD's for vocals. I think instrumentalists are forced to throw a vocal or two on their CD's and at some venues to try and attract some new listeners. I hate when they take a tired old song and let just anyone sing, but I enjoy a well-written song that is sung by someone with a beautiful voice who genuinely feels what he/she is singing. Like Michael Franks (like you all didn't know I would name him).

As for Boney, he is talented, but the last few times I've seen him, his shows are way too expensive and way too short. I think he's kind of in the Peter White, Rick Braun vein. They are wonderful musicians but they are overrated and played into the ground. Radio acts like there are no other musicians out there that can play the guitar, trumpet, or sax besides these guys.

I agree on the jazz vocal part, I have a separate section of my cd collection just for jazz vocals (NY voices, Diana Krall, etc).

But this summer's tours are jazz lite packages which barely disguise the R&B core.

As for Boney, I liked his show, but then it was free (Mohegan Sun) and 2 of my hometown friends play in his band. I was very happy to see them and I think I was caught up in that.

Dave I know where you're coming from, I felt much the same over the Dave Koz show this week. People tell me that Koz's show is about audience participation and everybody getting into it, but I guess I'm a dinosaur. I actually wanted to hear jazz not the greatest hits of James Ingram.

As a big contemporary jazz fan I agree that too much vocals can be a turn-off. When I heard the first track of Boney James "Ride" online I was glad I didn't buy it!! I have to admit I'm a little guilty myself for having some vocals on my albums, but at least I try very hard to come up with progressions that are a little different from the usual Dm9 A7/#9 with hip hop groove. I have no doubt the musicianship is great in the B. James band- it's the material that's boring - at least to me.
But apparently it sells well, doesn't it?

uh oh..this is long ..please don't flame..just scroll down if ya want...

When Trust came out I was one of the biggest advocates and crusaders behind that CD..I loved it and still do. There are a lot of Boney songs that I like on any given CD..he has done some killer songs. But when he gets into that Lite RnB wah wah sloooow groove stuff I hit the skip button. I thought he was great live with Rick Braun but the 4 times I have seen him solo he lost me..especially the first two when he was so smarmy with all the little chat about sex and romance and the posing and pouting onstage that I thought I was seeing Fabio with a sax. Like everyone else these days I take them on a song-by-song basis. Sometimes even one solid song on a CD is better than some of the "product" that comes out these days.

I thought it was very telling that Brian Soergel who is totally tied in to the "LA insider" smooth jazz community and being politically correct made this comment in his review of the new Euge Groove, which has a "chant vocal" but no pop/lite RnB full vocals

<>

It seems like Boney and Norman Brown..who both have CDs that are heavy with Lite vocals..are trying to "reimage" themselves as Lite RnB artists. Norman B.s press release even calls him a "smooth jazz/urban" artist. Whatever floats their boat..I don't like Lite music either instrumentals or vocals so snooze me and I'm outta here. But in the commercial context Soergel nailed it..the audience isn't out there. The vocals rarely get airplay and never cross over to A/C or Urban A/C to the point where they have any significant chart action (top 20 for over one week). The may get played on a 10pm-2am Quiet Storm show on an Urban A/C station but that is it.
Plus..the A/C formats are even more conservative with new music than Smooth Jazz believe it or not. You have to be a big name with a lot of money behind you to get a full time add on a pop station in these times..WB seems to be encouraging these vocals but even if they had the hundreds of thousands of bucks to get them added on influential radio stations are they up to the same quality level as the songs they are competing against for the few current slots in a radio format. IMO these guys are jeopardizing their credibility with the majority of their fans who come to them for instrumentals in order to play in an arena that is already crowded and highly competitive. And while growth and diversity are good they phase out doing what they do best and we lose some potentially wonderful music that is replaced by clone music. Also is this evolution..or merely accomodation?? AS for increasing sales look at your budget limitations adn the cost of CDs..if you want Lite vocals wouldnt you rather get 10-12 good ones and buy a cd by Phil Perry, Regina Belle, Will Downing or such where the songs have been selected and produced as a priority and with the vocalist in mind. Rather than these "gotta do a vocal" afterthought type vocals that clutter up otherwise really good CJazz and Smooth Jazz CDs.
O
One thing I have really noticed recently is that Smooth Jazz radio is scared of it's own music. Now I am afraid that effect is trickling down to the artists, who are also being scared away from playing a lot of the music they love to play and that their fans come to them for. As I have said before the music research the corporate stations have used to guide them away from instrumental music does not indicate what people really want to hear so I hope the artists aren't being guided down this path also on the basis of corrupt data.

Unbelievable...I'm sitting here reading this thread, and what should come up at random on my 300 CD player just now, but "Heaven", off Boney's "Ride"!! No kidding! (Wait, lemme go hit the "skip" button!) :p

I USED to be a really big fan of Boney's. He was one of the first jazz artists I ever saw in concert...thanks to free tickets given away by the jazz station we had at the time. It was during his "Backbone" tour, and I was blown away! I also saw him during his "Seduction" tour a couple years later, and it was great!

However, he seemed to start to go progressively toward the "sexy, silky, sultry" downslide, so that when "Sweet Thing" came out, I didn't even bother buying that one. (I have it NOW, but it had been out for years!)

Then, last September 7th, I went to his concert here in N.O., and I'm pretty sure I related to you guys how disappointed I was in that concert. No, the MUSIC wasn't bad...(He did NOT play anything from "Ride", it had not been released yet)...but they had the sound cranked up really, REALLY loud!!! Unbelievably LOUD! The thing is, nobody else seemed to mind, but I was freaking out! My eardrums throbbed for days! Oh, BTW, the crowd in there that night were mostly African-American, and were REALLY getting into it, loud or not!

Then, when Ride came out, I unfortunately went right out and bought a copy, but, boy, was I disappointed!! Ick!! Oh, alright, there are a FEW "OK" tunes...RPM and Grand Central, maybe, but nothing special...they sound like rehashes of some of his old "okay" stuff, but NOT the "great" stuff! And, the "bump & grind", "do me baby" (Borrowing from Shannon here!) theme of the rest of the CD...icky icky, yuck, YUCK!! :p

I did NOT go see him when he came again in the spring...I saved my money! :rolleyes:

Okay, 'nuff said!

I think Boney's "Something Inside" featuring Dave Hollister got into the top 20 urban A/C and "Ride" (featuring Jaheim) is sitting at 23 now. Both songs include vocals. I listen to everything and those songs sound just as good as anything else on the radio. Boney is a good musician and business man who is very in touch with music trends and his primary audience.

First internet message board critics say smooth jazz artists can't possibly write and produce vocal songs that can compete with those by Alicia Keys and gang. However, when sj artists meet and exceed expectations those same critics draw another line. "They can't get into the top 20!" Personally, I think that is complete BS because it is all marketing. What's is lite RnB anyway? I just want to hear good songs. When I hear someone yelling "Murda Inc, the world's most talented record label" on a Boney James CD, that's when I give up listening to music. For now, vocals are okay with me. I also like good instrumentals. There are only a few top 40 R&B producers making stand out music with their phat beats.