- Title: FJ-HRN-1983
- Summary: Kenny G:
- Description:00:00:13 - BRoll: Kenny G Playing the saxophone 00:00:48 - BRoll: Kenny G Playing the saxophone 00:01:05 - Sound Bite- Kenny G The reason I am here at the Reeco International Factory is because I am partnering with Reeco, we are joining forces and they will be providing reeds and accessories, we're going to do them together, for my new line of saxophones, my G series saxophones there gonna have a new line of reeds and accessories exclusively exclusively for this. So that's kinda how we became associated with each other. 00:01:39 - Sound Bite- Kenny G Well you know Im a public school graduate. So for me I learned how to play my saxophone at the public schools. I had a lesson every week: I remember the guys name, Mr. Bloom. I mean I havent thought about him in forty years, but he is the one how taught me the mechanics on how a saxophone works. The kids that are here today are from a place a place called Home from south central LA. Its like a youth center that gives them educational opportunities, music being part of that and I just think its important to support that and give kids a chance to do what I did, when I, music was in the school when I was a kid. Its not in the schools all the time and I want to give them the chance I had. 00:02:24 - Sound Bite- Kenny G Well you know, I got straight As in school so I could have done other things. My dad was in the plumbing business so I could have done that, there was talk that I was going to be part of my dads business which was a whole sale company of plumbing goods. So I could have done that, Im glad I do this, this is a lot better for me a lot more fun. Thats why I share this with kids, its almost like an obligation. If you are successful, why am I successful with this? Its a lot of luck, lot of you gotta be able to play. Just like what Tiger Woods says when he wins all those tournaments, you just to have a lot of luck with it. I had some good luck so to spread that back to the kids thats my pleasure. 00:03:12 - Sound Bite-Kenny G Well, I call it an album because Im old. But Im really excited about my new album, its an all Latin record, never done anything like that before. Got in the studio with the most famous Latin players in the world. One of the most famous Latin drummers Alex Acoonya(?) and Palina Acousta(?) on percussion. These guys putting their Latin rhythms and me putting my romantic saxophone and we combined forces and created a new sound and Im really proud of ittalks...Exactly thats why I call it Rhythms and Romance. Because thats exactly what it is, theres romance cause thats what I play and theres a lot of rhythms involved. Its a new record for me Ive never done anything like it. Live in the studio, I didnt go into my secret laboratory and do sample sounds, this is totally played live. It has a lot of energy and heart. 00:04:24 - Sound Bite-Kenny G Well I think that if youre trying to get people to buy records like they use to then youre going to be frustrated the rest of your life. You could be swimming up streams so thats not going to work, never works when your swimming up stream. If you gotta think about it in a different way. I like the way things are, I love it, I am lucky that I sold a lot of records in the time when people bought a lot of records so Im lucky there. But if you look at it a different way, people arent flocking to the record stores cause theres not a lot of record store but a person in shanghai can wake up in there pajamas and buy my record in the comfort of their living room, and they can. Okay so theres something there, so how do you make that work for yourself? I think what you do is you gotta think about selling people, maybe you dont sell them CDs you sell them something else. Maybe you sell them access to you and very private things, maybe back stage pass internet style. Which means that if you join my subscription you can get all my records free for the rest of your life all the records you want and you know what you can get concert tickets when I come to town and a newsletter whatever you want for X amount of dollars per month and you are on my list forever and ever. I think that, if you focus on that right there the record companies arent going to like that because theyre not selling any records but the artist are going to be better off by this new day an age. And Im really excited about it. 00:05:56 - Sound Bite-Kenny G Well if youre smart, the tour can be a good source of income but if youre not smart you spend all of your money doing the concerts and you come home with nothing. But thats some artist arent as smart, I also have a business degree from the University of Washington so, its very simple Column A has to be more then Column B, and thats all. Four years of college and thats what I come out with. But concerts are still a good way to promote records cause your taking it to the people local markets, you could do local promotions etcetera etcetera. But the main thing people want more the any other that I have discovered in my twenty-five years of doing this is they want to know the artist and they want access to the artist. And the internet gives them that kind of access if you can do special things. Now, on my website I do special things like special blurbs, I do special thing by saxophone, talk to them, show them the inside track. It just cost you to be, you have to subscribe to a certain place where you can get my backstage pass. My internet backstage pass. I think its wonderful and I think people can really get to know the artist and its good for the artist. I think thats where the future is in my opinion. 00:07:24 - Sound Bite-Kenny G I dont know, I dont know whether the artist ever thought business is bad. Business is good, its the music business. But you have to partner with the right partner. Now for example if Im going to partner with Marlboro cigarettes. I dont know that doesnt seem to work I play the saxes I need my air but Im going to partner with a cigarette company maybe thats not going to work to well. But now a partner like DeDario(?) that makes Reeco reeds; I use the product its part of what gives me my sound okay thats pretty good there. But you can find lots of partners. Starbucks was my partner there for a long time. I just like the quality of their product. Theres a lot of ways to find it, by the way business sometimes provides the only way a musician can go to a country. I will say this not to be hypocritical but Phillip Morris was my sponsor when I went to Asia one time. It was either them to sponsor me and I could afford to go or I couldnt but in the whole thing was that they were going to educate people not to smoke so I took the money so we could do the tour but I wasnt promoting smoking it may sound hypocritical but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do business wise to get the music to the people. 00:08:47 - Bite-Kenny G Nothing, I dont want people to know much about me. I dont want to be, I dont want any information about me to be something that would betalks well, Ill tell you a couple of things. First of all, I practice the saxophone two to three hours a day every single day. Im proud of the fact that I still have the dedication I had In high school. Thats something people dont normally know, you would think that after a person reaches a certain level that you dont have to practice. Well you dont have to, I like to. I like this instrument, I want to get better, Im still trying to get good. Now you may think Im good but I think I have a long ways to go and Im gonna keep trying and trying to get. And by the way, its a lifelong path, youll never gonna master it, its like golf. See I like golf too, always one of my passions. Ive played many rounds with the best players in the world from Jack Nicolas, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, Phil Nicolson, and all those guys, Ive played with president Clinton. Golf is another thing like music that seems to bring people of different areas of life together. And what do I see these top people in different walks of life? They are all dedicated to what they do and they practice really hard to be the best we can be. And guess what theyre never satisfied and theres always more to learn, I fall under that category. 00:10:21 - Sound Bite- Kenny G To do the professionally requires a lot of dedication, you got to love it. The first thing s you gotta love it, the problem is kids see them out there on television and think money and celebrities. Some people do it to make money and to be celebrities, I only wanted to do this because I love this saxophone and I wanted to be a good saxophone player in the processes I got lucky and things went my way and I have a sound people people seem to like so there you go. But in would advise kids that you gotta do it for the love of the music, and then let all the other things fall in place and they will but you gotta do it for the love of the music. And then your whole life will be about getting better, think about it, if youre the best how an the world say no. 00:12:27 - Sound Bite-Robert Polan (Reeco Product Manager) We started working with Kenny when he approached us about his new line of saxophones and thought it was a great partnership. Kenny has an amazing line of saxophones put together with very cool features and it matches well to what we do as a company as an innovator with music product and accessories. We make everything from reeds to mouth pieces, also our company Dedario makes guitar strings, drumheads and we are one of the largest guitar string manufacturers in the world. 00:12:56 - Sound Bite-Robert Polan (Reeco Product Manager) Well, Dedario believe in music education just like Kenny G does, when we were talking about some ways to work together we said lets find some ways to promote music and music education with students. And a place called home is an organization here in Los Angeles where Reecos home is and Kennys home is, we felt it was a great opportunity to give a donation back in product and in monetary to this organization. 00:13:35 - Sound Bite-Robert Polan (Reeco Product Manager) Well Kenny is well known saxophone if not thee well known saxophone player in the world and theres no name that travels like Kenny Gs does and we felt that we needed to work together because Reeco is also the most well known reed in the world so the partnership was perfect. 00:14:00 - Sound Bite-Robert Polan (Reeco Product Manager) Deadario..talks weve been making guitar strings for over four hundred years, and we have been in the US for over a hundred years and we are one of those home grown American companies that have become a success story. And we grown from being a small guitar string maker to manufacturing over four hundred thousand guitar strings a day. Its a lot of productiontalks.we employee over a thousand people in the US we have a factory in New York and we also have the factory here in Los Angeles for remakingtalksyeah we work with a lot of great musicians like Kenny they come to us with how to make the product better and we take those ideas and incorporate those ideas into our design to try and make the product bettertalks recently Kenny came to us, recently Kenny came to us with some ideas on how to make the reeds better and when we include those reeds into his saxophone line we are going to take those ideas and make the reeds even better so they perform for him and all musicians who are going to be play his saxophone. 00:16:04 - Sound Bite-Robert Polan (Reeco Product Manager) We accentually make our reeds out of cane its a lot like bamboo but its a different product called erododonax(?) it grows in the south of France and Argentina and we have plantations in both France and Argentina. Its a very difficult product for us to use because it takes so long to grow, it takes about two years from the point when it sprouts out of the ground to the point where we can cut it down and make a reed.talkYeah, its one of those products that gives life to the reed and its a natural product so there is some difficulty working with the natural material but it allows musicians like Kenny to produce a beautiful sound and to make music. 00:16:54 - BRoll: Kenny G Kenny G with the students of a place called home 00:28:53 - B-Roll Kenny G kids playing music 00:32:49 - B-Roll Kenny G kids playing Girl From Ipanema
- Collection: Historic Films
- Producer:Historic Films
- Transmission Date:01/01/2009
- Rights:On request
- Decade: 2000s
- File Name: FJ-HRN-1983