There is some irony to the fact that the lyrics in Franks’ svelte 1977 song, “The Lady Wants to Know,” reference Miles Davis and John Coltrane - two jazz giants whose music was ignored by the same smooth-jazz radio stations that had Franks in heavy rotation. But I felt I was not necessarily in that groove. “And that’s OK I don’t want to bite the hand that still feeds me. But, hey, I wonder if some of this music is designed to be in the background? “A lot of the compositions in smooth jazz tend to be predictable and have ‘cute’ parts. Then again, in the 1980s, I’d suddenly become one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the (smooth jazz) format.” “When that album came out, Broadcast Architecture said: ‘You’re the kind of person we don’t want to play,” Franks recalled with a touch of incredulity. Never mind that Franks’ quirky, intricately crafted songs were influenced by, among others, Thelonious Monk and such Brazilian music greats as João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim.Īnd never mind that his elegant 1995 tribute album to bossa nova king Jobim, “Abandoned Garden,” was shunned by Broadcast Architecture, the top consulting firm then used by smooth-jazz radio stations across the nation. Never mind that he has a master’s degree in English from UCLA and that his wry lyrics were inspired by the sophisticated wordplay of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael and Mose Allison. Like Steely Dan - whose co-leaders Donald Fagen and the now-deceased Walter Becker were also jazz devotees - some of Franks’ songs became smooth jazz staples. His albums featured some of the same top jazz musicians who were recording with Steely Dan during the same time period. His music had little in common with that of such smooth jazz staples as Kenny G, Bob James and Hiroshima.įranks’ sly, svelte songs drew from jazz, bossa nova, funk, urbane pop, soul and more. ![]() The warm welcome his music received from smooth jazz radio stations and concert audiences came about by accident, not design. He released seven more albums before the largely jazz-free music known as smooth jazz started to become a national phenomenon in the early 1980s. ![]() “I’m anxious to see the new venue,” he said, speaking from his rural home in Saugerties, N.Y.įranks’ debut album came out in 1972 and he scored his first hit - the whimsical “Popsicle Toes” - in 1976. It was held at Embarcadero Marina Park North, just across from The Shell, which occupies part of Embarcadero Marina Park South. Franks’ most recent performance here was at the 2017 edition of the San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival.
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