“I’ve learned that you simply can’t control those bad vibes,” said Kenny G.
He not only plays elevator music, he speaks elevator music.
Like I was called to write. In support of a club I couldn’t afford to join.
From July 28, 1991. – JDW
A ten-year-old watches TV.
Pioneer jocks want better uniforms.
Athletic club volunteers raise money for our next generation.
Beginnings.
Listen.
A sound. Like an aeronautical daredevil – a barn swallow or a heat-seeking missile perhaps – it dips and drops and soars and floats and hovers and darts and dives. It soars some more. That’s the sax, Jack.
As the melody flutters in the still air, the music of Kenny G lifts the spirit and elevates the soul.
It also sells records. Based on sales – an important measure of success in this society – Mr. G is the leading saxophonist in the world. The very best at what he does. Judge for yourself, August 17th, at Portland Civic Stadium, as the MULTNOMAH ATHLETIC FOUNDATION presents the music industry’s number one instrumental artist. “The Jazz Artist Of The Decade”, according to BILLBOARD magazine, in a two-hour performance certain to be the talk of the town on the 18th.
It’s a concert that won’t soon be forgotten. (And other cliches.)
For Kenny G, a night in front of 20,000 appreciative Oregon fans was once beyond his wildest imagination. He never dreamt it.
Things just worked out that way.
Then answering to the surname of Gorelick, Kenneth became a musician at the age of 10. He remembers the day he found his instrument. “I can still clearly recall sitting with my family in the living room one Sunday night,” Kenny G shared with us after another soldout concert. “We were watching ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and I became completely enthralled by a saxophonist’s performance. I had to play the saxophone. I just had to. My skeptical but encouraging mom rented an alto sax for me. I’ve never stopped playing since.”
And he remembers the day he found his sound. “I can narrow it down to a particular afternoon during high school band class,” explains the graduate of Seattle’s Franklin H.S. and a precise kind of guy. “I was mysteriously drawn to these mesmerizing tones, obscure yet oddly familiar at the same time, coming out of the band director’s room. It was from one of Grover Washington Jr.’s earliest albums.” Kenny G had never heard such music, yet at the same time he knew he understood it. Somewhere inside himself.
In 1974, Kenny G received his first big break. “I got paid,” he says, still pleased. “For a weekend-long soloist gig with Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra.” He was 17 and a professional musician.
He’d found a career and got a life. “When it dawned on me that I could earn a living, doing something as stimulating as self-expression, I became a saxophone junkie,” Kenny G explains. “I practiced four hours a day for the next five years.”
He joined a local funk band called COLD, BOLD AND TOGETHER. You might not have heard of them. “That’s where I got ‘soul,'” says Mr. G. “Being the only white guy in the band was one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. I witnessed music crossing the color barrier and I found people were as happy to hear my blue-eyed soul as they were to hear the real thing.”
It must be noted. “CBT’s leader insisted,” G admits, “I was the squarest guy he had ever met.”
Squared up enough to earn a Phi Beta Kappa key and an honors degree in accounting from the University of Washington. “Some things are done for mom,” alibis the Husky alum.
Meanwhile, he was working as a sideman for almost every show that came through town. It’s a list of names from a wax museum. Liberace, Johnny Mathis, The Spinners. Diahann Carroll. Even the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus. “A grueling gig,” G offers, “and the elephants really stank.” A tough act to follow.
Which he did with a four-year stint in the then Portland-based Jeff Lorber Fusion. Kenny distinguished himself to the point where Arista Records, Lorber’s label, offered G his own solo deal. His first album – titled, you may have guessed, KENNY G – was released in 1982.
Well, one album led to another and pretty soon it was 1987 and Kenny G had a tune he liked a lot. That year he played SONGBIRD on The Tonight Show… three times. He played it for Oprah. Everybody seemed to like it. SONGBIRD became only the sixth instrumental single to crack the Top Ten in the last decade. “Only the second not closely associated with a film or television show,” Mr. G points out.
Perhaps explaining some of the motivation behind his recent contribution to Hollywood, THE THEME FROM “DYING YOUNG.” Julia Roberts’ latest clunker. The song is currently playing on several mellow local stations, which is more than can be said about the movie.
Was Kenny G surprised by the star-making success of SONGBIRD? “Yes and no,” he says firmly. “You see, it was written as a sincere expression of love for a beautiful woman, a woman who changed my life. It was not contrived as a potential hit. I wrote what I felt, so I knew in my heart that this song deserved to go all the way.”
Going all the way. Going. SONGBIRD put Kenny G on the road to fame and fortune. On tour to stardom. Operating at the multi-platinum level – gold records just don’t cut it nowadays – Kenny G has sold some 7,000,000 albums.
It seems every major star is looking for that special G spot. He’s collaborated most notably with Smokey Robinson and Michael Bolton, and he’s joined forces with the likes of George Benson, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston, and Johnny Gill.
Yes, that Johnny Gill. (I just read these Hollywood press releases, folks, I don’t write them.)
Today, Kenny G is the player seducing others with mesmerizing tones. He tells stories with his saxophone. He creates moods. He spins magic moments. Some as brief as the space between notes, others as long as an evening.
First and foremost, Kenny G is an entertainer. “Performing is what I love to do most,” he says.
August 17th at Civic Stadium. He proves it. This is a once-in-a-century party. You’re invited, because you’re a part of it. Please come.
You’ll be too old for the next one.
Feel.
Head bangers. In 1891, the same year the zipper was invented, twenty-six helmetless football players – the kind of guys we named streets after – decided the city was ready for an athletic club.
“The undertaking is a rather large one,” the daily paper editorialized, “but they have the right spirit and undoubtedly will succeed.” The initiation fee was $10, and no liquor, no gambling and no women were allowed.
From day one, the Multnomah Athletic Club set the standard for amateur sport in the Pacific Northwest. The first track meet in the region, the first state tennis championships were MAC events. The club introduced hockey to Portland and doubtlessly a fight broke out.
Swimmer Don Schollander. Weight lifting’s Ken Patera. Jim Grelle broke the four minute barrier for the mile, twenty-one times. Some of America’s greatest sportsmen (and sportswomen) have proudly worn the Winged M insignia. MAC athletes have won nearly thirty (30) Olympic medals, half of which were gold. They’ve established numerous world records in a wide variety of sports. Won hundreds of national championship events.
“Many people go through a lifetime where they never put anything on the line,” said Nancy Merki, a childhood polio victim who became a world famous swimmer at MAC during World War II. “We did. All of us did. And we realized what it was.”
What it was, the MAC still is. An organization devoted to the community, especially to Oregon’s young athletes. In this, its 100th anniversary year, the MAC has put itself on the line by creating the MULTNOMAH ATHLETIC FOUNDATION. It’s the MAC’s birthday party, but we get the present.
“The Foundation is intended as a gift to the people,” John Herman, the group’s president, explains. “We’re proud of the state’s quality youth programs. We saw a need to support and nurture them in the years ahead.”
The foundation will provide funding & organizational assistance to athletic programs & events. “One focus will be disadvantaged youngsters,” says Herman. “We’ll help develop new programs and enhance existing activities.”
The Multnomah Athletic Foundation will also encourage the development of individual athletes, especially at the national and international levels. And the Foundation will offer scholarships so qualified athletes can continue their educations. Putting their money where their MAF is, the MAC club will provide financial support the old-fashioned way – early. When it counts.
This spring, in celebration of the Centennial, the Foundation brought the Soviet Union’s very best athletes to Portland. The Coliseum was the site for major international action in freestyle wrestling and junior basketball. On October 27th, the 1991 WORLD CHAMPION GYMNASTICS TOUR hits town, while November 5 sees Portland hosting U.S. Olympic Volleyball competition.
“The 100th birthday of the MAC is the (first) birth day of the Multnomah Athletic Foundation,” John Herman offers. “These events are part of the MAC’s centennial celebration.
The city not only enjoys the opportunity to see some of the world’s best – like a Kenny G or a world champion athlete – but also all proceeds go to help potential stars of the future.”
That’s really the legacy of the 26 football players. “We’re proud of our past. No question. But what we’re saying is, ‘Hey, the MAC wants to be a positive force in this community. We want to make a difference.'” Herman looks you right in the eye when he says it. “The Multnomah Athletic Foundation will work to make sure, a hundred years from now, the kids in Oregon have the support they need to compete against the world’s best.”
A rather large undertaking, sure, but they have the right spirit.
They have the right spirit and undoubtedly will succeed.
