Printable Biography of Kenny G

He adopted his stage name when he turned professional at the age of 17 and started playing in Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra. He has a degree in accounting from the University of Washington.

In 1981 Kenny G signed with Arista Records as a solo artist. He has released many solo albums and collaborated with various artists including Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole and Aretha Franklin. Influenced by the likes of Grover Washington Jr., his own albums are usually classified as smooth jazz.

His cross-over into pop music has lead to negative reviews from many music critics, although he remains highly popular with the American buying public. As of 2003, Kenny G was named the 25th-highest selling artist in America by the RIAA, with 47.5 million albums sold in the USA [1]. In 1994, Kenny G won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for Forever in Love. In 1997, Kenny G earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for playing the longest note ever recorded on a saxophone. Kenny G held an E for over forty five minutes, a record he still holds.

Though he claims not to be a jazz musician, Kenny G has been criticized by some jazz players for his supposedly pedestrian, soulless playing. For example there was a controversy created after he overdubbed his saxophone onto a Louis Armstrong recording for his jazz standards album Classics In The Key Of G. Pat Metheny criticized Kenny G for what he claims is his "incredible arrogance" in defiling "the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones)" [2]. Richard Thompson also weighed in on the controversy with a song called "I Agree with Pat Metheny", in which he sang "a meeting of great minds, how nice / like Einstein and Sporty Spice".