T

here might be some irony in a nice
Jewish boy from Seattle having the
top-selling Christmas album of all
time.
But Kenny G doesn't see it.
"Everybody celebrates the holiday season,"
says the saxophonist, who's sold more than 40
million albums during his career — including
7 million copies of 1992's Miracles: The Holi-

day Album.

Kenny G (for Gorelick):
The best-selling pop
instrumentalist ever.

Kenny G plays the Palace tonight.

GARY GRAFF

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

"I'm not putting out a religious thing saying,
`Hey, this is my religion and I want everybody
to believe it.' i'm putting out a beautiful piece
of music people can enjoy. It doesn't matter
what religion you are — you enjoy the music.
"Plus, look at the fact that a Jewish guy wrote
`White Christmas.' That shows there aren't any
boundaries there."
Refusing to acknowledge boundaries has
been part of Kenny Gorelick's makeup since he
started playing saxophone nearly three decades
ago after a brief — and unsatisfying, he says
— fling with piano lessons.
Though instrumental music is an area where
hits are usually novelties and mass popularity
tends to be brief, G has shown unusual dura-
bility. He's the best-selling pop instrumental-
ist ever, and he's a regular fixture in Grammy
Award nominations.
He's not cooling off, either. G's latest album,
The Moment, entered the Billboard charts at
No. 4 when it was released last October.
"He's one of the most melodic sax players I've
heard in a long time," says Alto Reed, saxo-
phonist in Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band. "He's
got a very fluid style, very expressive. People
automatically assume that if you play sax,
you're a frustrated jazz artist ... He's shown that
sax is indeed becoming a voice in other areas
of the musical arts."
Such praise can be hard to find, however.
G is more used to the critical slams — whether
it's the Rolling Stone Album Guide calling his
music "fuzak ... a combination of [jazz] fusion
and muzak, which at its worst manages to be
more soporific than either individually," or the
characters in the film Wayne's World 2, offer-
ing up his playing as a substitute for dental
Novocain.
G tends to ignore the criticisms and laugh at
the jokes. His favorite is the "Saturday Night
Live" spoof of recording sessions for Frank Sina-
tra's Duets album, during which the Sinatra
stand-in tells the G character, "Jesus! What's
all that screeching!"
"I don't mind being the butt of a joke — if it's
a funny joke," says G, 40. "I've been at a lot of
gigs with Don Rickles, and he goes up there and
just nails me. I remember we played a Christ-
mas party ... and after I played 'White Christ-
mas,' he got up there and said, 'Kenny, look,
you're a Jewish guy. Get a haircut! You're mak-
ing a fool outta yourself.' I was in tears because
it was so fimny."
"The only thing I don't like is when a critic
tries to make it sound like it's not cool to like
my music. I don't think that's fair, and I don't
think anyone should have the right to tell peo-
ple it's not cool to like something."
G, who was raised in a Conservative Jewish
household (though he no longer practices), was
turned on to saxophone as a youth, after hear-
ing a big band soloist on "The Ed Sullivan
Show." He did time in the high-school band, but

Gary Graff is the editor of MusicHound Rock:

The Essential Album Guide (Visible Ink
Press, $24.95).