Kenny G
quotes:
"Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can."
"If I even lose my glasses or make a mistake. I become really disappointed in myself."
"I think everybody has to kind of decide what the word 'jazz' means to them, and that's fine."
"I've never really played golf. With the sax, I learned technique well enough so that it feels like part of my body, and I just express myself. That's where I want to get in golf."
"Sure, I love people, and I want to communicate with people. I mean, what is music anyway? It's a form of communication - at least for me it is. And that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people."
"Being a purely instrumental album, it makes a musical statement, not a religious one, and I hope that people can feel the emotion of the great melodies, even without the words."
KENNY G: Yeah. Well, I’m a numbers guy. I like numbers. I like studying things, and I enjoyed the learning process. Learning about music wasn’t interesting to me, but playing it has always been a joy. Learning about numbers and… I mean, I took calculus and economics and all that stuff. I just enjoy those subjects. I think that’s what they say. They say that if you learn to master an instrument, it’s the same brain as learning to figure out real hard calculus problems. I’ve been very good at that kind of stuff.
Kenny G on Starbucks Frappuccino: "At the beginning, Starbucks didn’t have anything but coffee. And there was another company, Coffee Bean, that had something called “blended” that was a sweet drink, and people were lined up around the block. And I would always call Howard and say, “Howard, there’s this thing that they do there that’s like a milkshake or whatever.” And so I think that part of the reason that they did Frappuccino was people like me giving them that kind of feedback. So I’d like to think that I was partially responsible for that."
UOTS: In January 2008, you said in an interview, "I think the future of music retail is really in stores like Starbucks," a company of which you were one of the original investors. Artists like Taylor Swift, whose sales were made up of 59% of large retailers in the first week her album was out, sort of support the gist of your opinion. Do you still stand your ground on that theory?
KG: There are just a few artists that do what she's doing. [Taylor Swift] is the anomaly; that's not the norm for most artists now. So, yeah, there are a lot of retailers that are still doing okay, but that's only with artists like [her].
But when it comes to the mass amount of artists that are making records, you need to be in a place like a Starbucks. Only a few people [have accomplished that]. It's not that easy. Anytime you can get your record at the point of purchase at a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble or anything like that, you're going to do really well. That's where people are standing around. A person that's buying a book at Barnes & Noble would probably like my music. I'm not saying everybody that buys a book likes my kind of style, but there are chances. If they're sitting there and they see my record there, it's convenient.
It's all about convenience. I think people really still like to buy music; it's just not convenient anymore because record stores are gone. So when you go to a Target or a Best Buy to buy your stuff, you're probably not going there to buy a cd. So it's not as easy for [customers] to say, "Oh, there's the new record" because they're not looking for it. If you're standing at a point of purchase at a Starbucks, then you see it right there, and you go, "I want to buy it. I didn't even know he had a new record," because it's right there and it's right in your face. That's what you want to do.
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Originally Posted by UDP II
