Smooth Jazz

Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles (separately, or, in any combination).

Modern derivatives of the genre include the more-recent New Adult Contemporary format of broadcast radio. "Smooth jazz" has been successful as a radio format; however, in 2007, the popularity of the format began to slide. Consequently, it was abandoned by several high-profile radio stations across the U.S.A., perhaps most notably by WQCD (now WFAN-FM) in New York and KKSF in San Francisco. Many industry insiders have speculated that the smooth jazz format may die out, particularly with many of industry giant Clear Channel Communications' stations dropping the genre. Critics of the company, however, blame Clear Channel for the format's decline, citing too much repetition of a sharply-reduced number of tracks on Clear Channel-owned stations that alienated many listeners. Despite the format's demise on commercial radio, a growing number of non-commercial stations have taken up the music. In addition, smooth jazz concerts, recording sales—as well as increased smooth jazz offerings on the Internet—continue to show strong fan support for the genre.

Read more about Smooth Jazz:  Description, Origins, Derivatives, Public Reception

Famous quotes containing the words smooth and/or jazz:

    There are acacias, a graceful species amusingly devitalized by sentimentality, this kind drooping its leaves with the grace of a young widow bowed in controllable grief, this one obscuring them with a smooth silver as of placid tears. They please, like the minor French novelists of the eighteenth century, by suggesting a universe in which nothing cuts deep.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)

    Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)