She’s talented, fun, and she presented the film to me as an idea that I really liked by saying, “Hey, let’s talk about your music. This is the person to make my documentary ? And why now?įirst off, she’s a great person. What was it about director Penny Lane that made you think, OK, this is it. I’m back in LA where it’s nice and quiet, in my studio-my little lair, here-but I love that city.Ĭongrats on the new album and documentary, by the way-you’ve been busy. Given his non-stop joie de vivre and ability to turn out such saxy tunes for love, we thought he’d be the perfect person to consult on the best romantic gifts to give during the holidays, from music to booze and more… I hope they take that lesson to become so great at what they love that when they’re older, the world says, ‘Hey, wanna come in?’” And I hope that’s what the next generation sees. I’ve been doing this for 50 years, so I should be good at it. “Not to pat myself on the back,” he tells VICE, “but I’ve just worked really hard.

“People seem to like ,” he says, “because it’s not the normal music documentary fluff piece that shows the artist and how great they are.” Viewers will go beyond the frenemy gates of jazz purists, visit Kenny’s high school, and see the intimate workings of a methodical approach to creativity (his anthem is “practice, practice, practice”) that makes him the Bill Nye of jazz.

He’s also a killer interviewee, exuding instant relatability and poise when we connected on Zoom to talk about his approach to romantic gift giving, his upcoming record New Standards, and what makes the new film so exciting. Throughout the doc, we learn that Kenny G is the best-selling instrumental artist in history, with over 75 million records sold, and that the man né Kenneth Gorelick is also an excellent pilot, baker, and golfer. He is also outlandishly great at pretty much everything he attempts. Kenny G is at once America’s boyfriend, cool uncle, and everyday hype man. It’s a tender but honest unpacking of the sax icon’s work, from director Penny Lane, whose past documentary work ( Hail Satan?) shows a talent for spotlighting often misunderstood cultural figures. “Most of his compositions are written in the scales we know and love in China,” explains Yin Zhi Yuan of the Chinese State Music Association in the HBO documentary Listening to Kenny G (2021), out today, which aims to uncover how Kenny G's music has become as deeply embedded in our collective unconscious as, say, spaghetti, Box Tops, or certain movie lines-and why turtlenecked jazz gatekeepers some people are so pissed off about that success.

Kenny g album cover