Sweet lord, spring has sprung! By the time you read this, Memorial Day will be past and it will probably already be too goddamn hot. Clouds of mosquitos will have descended, and hundreds of home recording enthusiasts will emerge blinking into the sunlight with demo tapes no one wants to hear. It’s the time of year for outdoor concerts and music festivals, and your weird neighbor will be already packing up for Nelsonville and demanding you babysit his pet squirrel for inadequate compensation.
  Which is a good thing. Maybe. But before you toddle off to the Scioto Mile Concert Series on a humid June evening, we feel obligated to once again remind you of the festering danger that lurks in an otherwise innocuous world of flip-flops and plastic Bud Light bottles. Remember, friends, even the adorable male platypus has a venomous spur on its hind foot. That’s right; this is your annual warning about smooth jazz.
  If you are unfamiliar with Kenny G, Chuck Mangione, Al Jarreau, and their ilk (and consider yourself lucky if you are), smooth jazz is a deformed musical hybrid in which insufferably long melody lines played on the saxophone or guitar are layered over shitty rock or pop beats for a hellish eternity. Some say that it is a horrible derivative of jazz fusion, while others say that jazz fusion is a pretty horrible genre in its own right with smooth jazz just being its worst manifestation. Regardless, it’s terrible music and it’s not jazz -- smooth jazz is to jazz what Jazzercise is to pornography. It sucks.
  It’s also wildly popular, especially among the summer concert crowd, and festivals book it far more than they should. And it’s sneaky – it likes to hide between quality rock bands like a viper concealed in the tall grass.
  And that’s what makes it dangerous – sometimes you never see if coming. Any idiot could tell you that the Columbus Arts Festival is positively dripping with smooth jazz, but who would have expected a smooth jazz opener for Mavis Staples last year? And you can’t rely on the festivals to protect you – Comfest has an I Wish You Jazz Stage, but they also might be wishing you smooth jazz.
  So in the spirit of public service, we humbly offer you these helpful tips for spotting smooth jazz before you end up listening to it. If you see any of the following, abscond:
  Bad artwork on sale near the stage. Actually, any artwork for sale near the stage.

  The complete absence of vomit. This should be self-explanatory.
  Smug bass players. Most bassists are at least a little smug, but with those who play smooth jazz you could catch it in a two liter bottle, freeze it, and use it to beat a home invader to death.
  People who plainly got dressed up to go stand in a park. Yes.
  Excellent band hygiene. Smooth jazz performers ain’t the Pert Plus crowd.
  Mayor Coleman. He loves smooth jazz so much he honestly doesn’t believe other forms of music exist. If you see him, walk away. If you see him dancing, run.
  Three or more men or women in the audience wearing shell necklaces. Seriously…

  Keyboardists that look like Kenny G. Sure, Kenneth Gorelick is a smooth jazz saxophone legend, but for whatever reason musicians who look like him only play keyboards, and they only play them in smooth jazz bands.

  Integrated Idiots. The only place more accepting of people from all races and walks of life than a smooth jazz audience is a winning craps pit. Unfortunately, the genre has dropped a bucket into this well of diversity and pulled up only the tasteless and feeble minded (and a few shell necklaces).

  The sound engineer bumming a cigarette off of you 200 feet away from the stage. He or she plainly doesn’t give a shit either.

  Un-tucked fancy dress shirts. Two buttons undone at the top, sleeves rolled up beneath the elbow. The sort of thing frat guys wear to Vegas, only somehow more appalling.
  The faint aroma of coconuts. Sourceless, yet existent.
  Collapsible lawn chairs in the front row. And the second…and the third…

  A sax player who just won’t shut the fuck up. Admittedly somewhat definitional, but seriously dude shut the fuck up.

  More wine coolers than beer. Don’t over think this, it will be obvious.
  So there you have it. We hope that this has been instructional and will save you time, sanity and the inconvenience of having to explain to your boyfriend that there must “totally be another Goodale park around here somewhere that isn’t on the map and we have to go right now I don’t want to talk about it.” We wish you a smooth jazz-less summer concert season of fine music, sunshine and reasonably priced drinks.

Thoughts and constructive criticism can be directed to edwardrforman@yahoo.com