“The sexiest thing a man can do with his clothes on is to play the saxophone” – that is according to my wife Nidhi. Now, I’m tone-deaf & don’t know one type of Sax from another so you’ll understand how this makes me feel whenever Nidhi listened to Kenny G, especially in the first few months when we had just got married ?! To be fair, despite his superstar status through the mid-80s, I had no clue who Kenny G was till Nidhi and I were married. We used to listen to his cassette quite a lot (alternating with Dire Straits?) on our morning commute from Saket to Connaught Place and I really got into his music. I still remember us laughingly singing along to “Hi How Ya Doin’” , listening to ‘Songbird’ and ‘Against Doctor’s Orders’ while stuck in traffic.

Kenny is a much-maligned artist. He’s been called “muzak-personified” and jazz purists seem to hate him – all because he doesn’t improvise the way Jazz musicians are supposed to. Kenny of course has the last laugh – he has sold over 70M albums and is the largest selling instrumental artist of all time. His fans describe his music as “transcendental”, “soothing” and “perfect bedroom music”! There are a number of his songs that Nidhi really likes, ‘Songbird’, ‘Silhouette’ and ‘Against Doctor’s Orders’ being somewhere near the top of the list. Songbird has an interesting story behind it – Kenny wanted to tell his new girlfriend how much he liked her. Now she was in LA while he was in Seattle, so instead of writing her a letter like ta normal person would, he composed this tune and sent it to her (that sets the bar so high for the rest of us ?!  Wait, I’m writing about Nidhi’s favourite songs so that should count for something ? !). ‘Against Doctor’s Orders’ on the other hand was created by Kenny when he had a fracture on his thumb and his doctor had told him not to play the sax for a few weeks. But he had this song stuck in his head and he just had to get it done – and his manager told him he should call it ‘Against Doctor’s Orders’ ?     

Kenny started playing the alto sax when he was 10. By the age of 17 he was so good that Barry White invited him to join his “Love Unlimited Orchestra”, marking his professional debut. He went on to get a degree in accounting (magna cum laude!) and play in a funk band. But it was only when he was at the ripe old age of 26, in 1982 that Kenny was first signed to a label, by the great Clive Davis himself. Kenny was immediately successful – I guess he was such a sharp contrast to all the rest of the stuff that MTV was pushing that he was a breath of fresh air. And the hits just kept coming, year after year, while Kenny collaborated with everyone from Andrea Bocelli to Michael Bolton (battle of the hair!) to Smokey Robinson. He continues to be cool even today – he has just recorded a collaboration with The Weekend (ask your kids who that is! ?). Along with being such an incredible musician, Kenny is a golfer with a handicap of 1.6 (OMG), flies his own airplane, still has a full head of hair and invested in Starbucks when it had just one store in Seattle. Enough Said!