Listening to Kenny G, All-Time Best-Selling Instrumentalist

Kenny G is the best-selling instrumentalist of all time, but why does he elicit such heartfelt, negative criticism from some listeners?

Penny Lane’s new HBO documentary Listening to Kenny G shows the world-famous saxophonist speaking candidly about his musical background, his stringent work ethic, and his controversial standing in the jazz world.

Penny joins us to discuss the making of the film and how she gained access to such a high-profile music star. She also reveals her original impressions of Kenny G and his music, but shares what it was like getting to know the real artist behind the music while shooting this documentary. 

“I would never have thought who Kenny G is, why he makes this music, it just never crossed my mind that behind that music was an artist.” - Penny Lane

Time Stamps:

00:00 - The trailer for Listening to Kenny G.
03:05 - What the film is about. 
05:17 - How Penny feels about Kenny's music.
07:09 - Why some people dislike his music so strongly.
09:31 - Why Penny thought now was a good time to make a documentary about this musician.
11:27 - Common misconceptions people have about Kenny G.
13:10 - Why fitting into a specific genre isn’t as important as it used to be.
16:24 - How the idea for the film started.
18:37 - How Penny gained access to Kenny G.
20:25 - The amount of time Penny spent shooting with him.
21:15 - Penny’s impression of Kenny after spending so much time with him.
23:22 - How Penny’s conception of the documentary evolved over time.
29:45 - The next project Penny is working on about altruistic kidney donations.

Resources:

Listening to Kenny G (2021)
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Connect with Penny Lane:

Website

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Transcript for Factual America Episode 80: Listening to Kenny G, All-Time Best-Selling Instrumentalist

Penny Lane 00:00
Hi, I'm Penny Lane. I'm the director of the new HBO documentary, Listening to Kenny G.

Speaker 1 00:07
He's just sort of part of the musical furniture of American culture.

Speaker 2 00:10
It's just wallpaper.

Speaker 3 00:12
With Kenny G's music, what can you say?

Speaker 4 00:16
How you feeling?

Kenny G 00:17
Underappreciated in general. I don't think there's anything wrong with hard work. That's a hard lick. I just played it really well. Putting in the reps, and then reaping the reward of, I'm really good at this. I think that's why my career's lasted this long.

Speaker 5 00:34
The fact of the matter is Kenny G in the 1990s, was one of the most well known musicians on this planet.

Kenny G 00:41
Somebody asked me, "What kind of music do you do? Is it jazz?" I don't know. You might think it might be jazz. "Well, is it pop?" I don't know. You might think it might be pop.

Speaker 5 00:49
He was having a huge impact on defining what jazz is, even though the jazz community were looking at his music with disdain.

Kenny G 00:57
These are songs from my heart. This is the way I just hear it. They think I've decided to play these kinds of songs because I knew they would sell well. If only I was that smart.

Speaker 6 01:09
People have gotten married to his music. Had babies by his music.

Speaker 7 01:14
He makes playing an instrument really cool.

Speaker 8 01:15
I been listening to him since I was a baby!

Speaker 6 01:18
At the same time, he is also one of the most hated people in jazz.

Speaker 9 01:23
What the hell's not to like?

Speaker 1 01:28
There's something deeply powerful about the fact that that music has reached millions of people.

Kenny G 01:34
The fact that what appeals to me also appeals to other people. That's the beautiful thing.

Matthew 01:48
That is a trailer from the HBO documentary, Listening to Kenny G. And this is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company, making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week, it is my pleasure to welcome the award winning filmmaker Penny Lane, the director of the HBO documentary, Listening to Kenny G. Kenny G, the best selling instrumentalist of all time is loved and loathed alike, which in many ways reveals more about us and our artistic tastes than it does the man himself. Don't believe me? Well stay tuned. And let's listen to Penny Lane. Penny, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?

Penny Lane 02:36
Pretty good, thanks.

Matthew 02:38
Yes, it's great to have you. The film is Listening to Kenny G. Available to watch on HBO and stream on HBO Max starting December 2. Penny, again, thank you so much for joining us. We usually start with the fairly basic question. But, maybe for our audience, just won't you tell us - if you don't mind - give us a synopsis of what is Listening to Kenny G all about.

Penny Lane 03:05
So, Listening to Kenny G is a documentary about why Kenny G is the best selling instrumental artist of all time. And why his success rubs some people the wrong way. Like, why certain people really hate Kenny G, basically.

Matthew 03:22
Yeah, I mean, he's loved and loathed alike...

Penny Lane 03:26
Mostly loved! It's always important to say, you know, because, like, I mean, really, because most of the time when I tell people, like, what the film is about, they're like, who hates Kenny G? Like, what?

Matthew 03:38
Really?

Penny Lane 03:38
You know, so, yeah, so, you know, most people on this planet, love Kenny G and cannot fathom not loving Kenny G. But, you know, there's a kind of world that I live in that, you know, maybe we could summarize as, like cultural elites or something, where, you know, the presumption is that, of course, you understand that Kenny G's music is terrible. And, you know, you would never be a fan.

Matthew 04:00
Yeah. Yeah.

Penny Lane 04:01
But that's not normal. That's not most people's attitude toward him.

Factual America midroll 04:05
Okay, so that's interesting, because I was gonna say this may end up being one of our most - you know, we've discussed death penalty, we've discussed all kinds of controversial subjects on this podcast, but that this may end up being our most controversial podcast. But...

Penny Lane 04:17
Maybe. Yes.

Matthew 04:17
... what you're telling me, it may be, depending on who our audience and what demographics are...

Penny Lane 04:22
That's right.

Matthew 04:23
But...

Penny Lane 04:23
Exactly.

Matthew 04:24
In other ways, this could be the least controversial is what you're saying?

Penny Lane 04:27
Yeah, it could be the most popular!

Matthew 04:30
Well, we're hoping for that! So, I mean, and thank you again for making this because this is, I mean, I was gonna say this is not your typical biopic if it is even that at all. And so, as you've already just done, you've cut straight to the point about this, you know, here's this best selling instrumentalist of all time. But yet, what is it? There's this visceral hatred out there, or has been, at least, and loathed by certain, as you said, elites, cultural jazz establishment, maybe. I mean, what were your thoughts going in? What were your allegiances before you started making this project?

Penny Lane 05:16
Well, I wouldn't have been able to do it if, like, I was in the camp of people whose, like, blood pressure goes up when they hear the beginning of Songbird, you know; a lot of my friends, you know, do have, like, a visceral, negative reaction. And that's one of the things I show in the film is I actually, you know, kind of force these music critics to listen to his music. And we kind of watch their faces, and it's just kind of like their grimacing and, you know, Ben Ratliff looks like he's trying to, like, hold it far away from him, like, you know, so, I'm not in that camp, like, I'm not a fan. I don't, like, love this music. It was, you know, certainly I grew up in the 90s, like, being into, like, what we then called alternative music. So, it wasn't like, you know, certainly at that time, I would have said, like, oh, yeah, I hate that music. But I don't get mad about it. Like, it's not, it doesn't upset me. It doesn't offend me. So, for me, like, I had a little bit of fun with, like, looking at that anger and kind of laughing at it because it is kind of funny, like, why should it be the case that, like, this incredibly inoffensive music would cause so much anger? Like, it's actually funny. So, that was kind of - that was my attitude going into it; is, like, this is kind of funny, but it also gets at something deep, like, trying to answer that question, I think will tell me something about the nature of music and personal taste and identity, and, like, how we think about those conflicts, and like, what is good art? And who gets to decide; so, that, for me, was the value of trying to answer the question of why certain people get so angry about him.

Matthew 06:50
Well, and I mean, since we're on this topic, and it was something I was gonna ask you later, actually coming back from the break, but why do you think - I shouldn't say 'so many' - why do you think there's this core group of people who can't stand his music, or have this reaction to him?

Penny Lane 07:08
I think it's generally people who have, like, a deep love for jazz, you know, they have, like, a real investment in, like, whatever version of jazz, that they have an investment in, and they see this guy who's doing nothing, doing none of the things that they think are important, like, really just kind of hollowing out anything that would be good or valuable about jazz and replacing it with something they think of as being quite soulless and dumb. And then they see - and then the worst part is now all that would be fine if he were not the most successful living jazz artist, you know, by, like, a landslide. Like, all that would be, like, offensive to them on some level. But the anger I really do think comes from his success. And again, I get it, like, I feel this way about things that I feel this way about, it just isn't jazz, and Kenny G. Like, we all have our, like, little camps that we're in. And there's something very upsetting about when your opinions about art are kind of proven wrong by the marketplace in some kind of way. Like, it bothers people. It bothers one, when that happens.

Matthew 08:18
Or is it they don't even think they've been proven wrong. It's just that the rest of society doesn't get it. Is that an element of it? It's the flip side.

Penny Lane 08:26
Oh yeah, it is so depressing because that means everyone's dumb. You know, why is everyone so dumb? Why don't they have good taste like me, you know? And, you know, I thought it was really important to try to, like, deal with the music as music. Like, I was trying to kind of create a kind of music criticism piece; like, that was kind of my approach. As you said, it's not really a biopic; like, there's biographical elements, but they're only there if I think they can help illuminate the music; like, what is this music? What is going into it? How are people hearing it? Like, what is the context in which you hear it? How does that affect your associations with it? Like, you know, if you heard it first at your parents' wedding, you're gonna associate different things to it than if you heard it first in an elevator, you know? So, all these things are, like, really important. So, yeah, so, I just tried to, like, bring as many different points of view to the music as I could; like, what are all the different ways we could consider this music?

Matthew 08:33
And so, why tell this story now? What is it that said, we need a Kenny G doc?

Penny Lane 09:29
Well, I thought, like, you know, it was a good time to do a film about him specifically because he was having this - he is having this kind of Renaissance moment. You know, and it's not to overstate it. I mean, he's been around this whole time. I'm not trying to say, like, he disappeared for 20 years. Not at all. He's got a very successful career. He's still touring the world. He's not playing the biggest venues in the world, but he's still touring and playing big venues. Anyway, but, you know, when I was thinking about this film he had already kind of shown up on Kim Kardashian's Twitter timeline; you know, he had this association with Kanye West, he played on Kanye's new album. So, I was like, what; like, and watching the internet react to that was really what gave me the feeling of, like, now is an interesting moment because you've got this younger generation that doesn't have these negative associations with him at all. Like, they're like, you know, they're 20. Like, they weren't around when this music was being forced upon you, you know, pumped into your eardrums at every turn, you know, so they hear and they hear this kind of, like, retro 80s sound that, you know, I think sounds kind of cool, you know, and so, I thought that was really interesting. And then seeing how, like, thinking about Kanye, the genius that he is, the crazy genius that he is, and like, was that kind of a troll, you know, like, was there kind of a troll in there. But also, the song is really good. And like Kenny's part in it is really good. And so, you're like, it's - there's a lot of, like, I thought cognitive dissonance going on in that moment where the internet was like, Wait, do I love Kenny G? Or do I hate Kenny G? I'm not sure. Like, I felt like that was what the internet was asking at that moment.

Matthew 11:05
And so, in telling this story, I mean, what have we, I mean, what have he got him wrong - or some of us of a certain age, maybe, have gotten wrong all along? I mean, is he misunderstood, you think? The individual, Kenny Gorelick? Is he, I mean, he was never really trying to be some of the things that his critics would criticize him for being, you know?

Penny Lane 11:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that the kind of common misconceptions that I would have, that I had, so, I could sort of assume a lot of people had; you know, first of all, when you encounter this music in the context that I described, where it's like, as Ben Ratliff says in the film, you know, the sound of corporate America trying to calm me down, like, you know, that is a very particular way to encounter music. And so, for me, you know, I would probably never have even thought, like, who is Kenny G? Why does he make this music; like, the person. It just never crossed my mind that behind that music was an artist. It felt like it had been manufactured for, like, this corporate purpose, you know. So, I think the biggest misconception is that he's a person and that he actually is an artist making artistic choices and trying to express himself in as authentic a way as he can. Another misconception about Kenny is that, yeah, if he felt like it, he could play, you know, really sophisticated jazz, but he's made the conscious decision to play dumb jazz to make money. I mean, I don't think that's true at all. I think neither one of those things is true. I mean, I don't think he knows anything about jazz. So, there's no way that he could perform the kind of jazz that people are thinking of. And then he's also, you know, of course, he's a savvy businessman, like every artist in the marketplace needs to think about an audience and, like, how to meet them, but I don't think he's any more calculated in terms of how he's putting out his music than any other artist is; like, are you thinking about what feedback you've gotten in the past from your fans? Yeah, like, probably, but he is just largely, you know, doing art stuff coming up with melodies, you know, working out songs that he likes and putting them out there.

Matthew 13:09
And at heart he's always been a pop artist, isn't it? I mean...

Penny Lane 13:14
I think so.

Matthew 13:15
... is a way of putting it.

Penny Lane 13:16
I think so. Yeah. And that's another thing that's interesting is that, you know, that whole way of thinking about music now is just so dated; like, genre really mattered in the world of a record store. Like, it really mattered what section - yes, or radio - it really mattered what station you were on, or what section you were in, because that determined literally who was going to see it, like, because I didn't go to the jazz section when I went into Newbury Comics, I went to, like, the indie rock section, like, you know; so, that's not how it is anymore. Like, people don't access music in that way. And so, now there's so much less at stake with the question, like, is this jazz? Is this pop? Is this R&B? Is this a crossover? Like, it kind of doesn't matter the same way as it used to. At least that's my hypothesis, it doesn't seem to matter as much.

Matthew 14:07
And then I guess what maybe affects his, or exercises, his critics maybe is he does have this keen cultural awareness and business sense. And he is extremely successful at many of the things he touches. And then he has this ability to build this incredible connection with his fans, which I found interesting. It's multicultural, it's got a broad demographic; that was for me, that was enlightening.

Penny Lane 14:40
That's another misconception. Like, a lot of people if you ask why do you hate, you know, what's so wrong with Kenny G? They would say he's making music for rich white people. And I'm like, Have you been to his shows? Like, rich white people are the people who hate his music! Like, what are you even talking about? Like, that makes no sense. You know what I mean?

Matthew 15:00
Yeah, yeah.

Penny Lane 15:01
Like, really; talk to, like, a normal middle class black American and ask them if the people in their friends’ circle hate Kenny G. I guarantee that typically the answer's no. They're like, what? That's, like, part of the soundtrack of our lives at that point in history

Matthew 15:16
Well, and they're certainly well represented in your crowd scenes that you show.

Penny Lane 15:20
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew 15:22
You know...

Penny Lane 15:22
Yeah. Its like who's going - who's taking their wife there on a date? You know?

Matthew 15:28
I think that takes us to a good point for an early break for our audience. We'll be right back with Penny Lane, the director of Listening to Kenny G, on HBO and HBO Max from December 2.

Factual America midroll 15:41
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @alamopictures, to keep up to date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 16:00
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with award winning director, Penny Lane. Her latest doc is Listening to Kenny G. It's going to be on HBO and streaming on HBO Max from December 2, certainly in North America. Penny, I kind of alluded to this earlier, but how did this project come about?

Penny Lane 16:23
Well, Bill Simmons was putting together a series of music documentaries for HBO. The series is called Music Box. And he asked me if I wanted to pitch any ideas for the series. And I really liked him and wanted to work with him. And also wanted to work with HBO. Like, I wanted the job, basically. So, even though initially, I was like, I don't know, no, I don't - I really - music documentaries are just not my thing. Like, at all. I don't watch them ever. I mean, I really don't. Like, it doesn't matter if I like the band or don't like, I just won't watch it. Like, and, you know, and it's just a tough form. I think it's - there's a lot of problems with the form of the biography in general. But then when you add having to cover all the bases of the art, it's like, kind of tough, anyway, so. But so, I thought, well, if I could - I had this idea. So, then in that context, I had this idea to do Kenny G and to think about these questions that we've been discussing, like, through Kenny G. And I pitched that to Bill and he loved it. So, I figured at that point, like he'd either never call me again, or he would love it, and luckily, he did. So, we started working on it. And it was just a dream project, honestly, from the beginning, like, everyone involved was so great. I had the greatest executives, you know. Kenny was just a dream. Like, it was my first time making a celebrity movie. And, like, I had a lot of fear about what that would be like. And, you know, I had this image of, like, this kind of, you know, barrage of handlers that would kind of constantly keep me from him or something; that was not, like, we just texted each other and, like, talked and he was very direct and available to us and really wanted to be - wanted to give us the best performance he could give us; wanted to, like, help us make the best movie we could make. So, he was just, like, awesome. Like, he was so gracious and generous with his time and his energy. He never ran out of energy, either, by the way; shooting days would eventually end but only because I was tired, not because he was.

Matthew 18:20
Well, I think that comes across as pretty amazing for a man in his 60s, from what I can tell. I mean, how did you - I mean, you mentioned he's so gracious. But how did you gain access? I mean, he could - obviously, I imagine someone like him, he could easily have said no, but he certainly comes off as a willing participant in this.

Penny Lane 18:36
Oh, yeah. And he was and he's been great in the release as well. Because he's smart. And, like, he understands, like, this is a way of getting attention and being part of the conversation and culture. I mean, he knows that. And he also probably had a sense that the audience that I was directing this toward was not necessarily the same audience that would, like, already be hearing about his new album or, like, aware that he's touring. So, like, he wants to tour. He wants to sell albums. He wants to tour. So, I think he saw that it was a good opportunity. And I think honestly, you know, and he said this, so, I think it's safe to say, I think he liked me, and he trusted me and that was pretty meaningful. You know, the point where I pitched this to him, he did have some people in his circle of advisers, telling him to say no, because, you know, why wouldn't you wanna make something, let's make something ourselves. Let's make, like, you know, a thing where you get back end and you have creative control. And he, at that point, he could have said no, but he was, like, Look, I've got an offer on the table from HBO. Why would I, like, give that up in favor of some other thing that may or may not happen and he was right because there is no audience for self-produced Kenny G EPK in 2021. Like, no one is gonna watch that. There's no audience for that. So, he made a good choice, but it didn't take a lot of convincing. I approached him with the idea. He said yes.

Matthew 20:04
And then how much time did you spend with them? Because it seems like it's kind of constant. I mean, I know you were following him around but it seems pretty concentrated. It's an interesting, I thought, the different ways you approached him in terms of backstage, sit down interview, observational...

Penny Lane 20:21
In the studio.

Matthew 20:22
... in the studio. Yes, that kind of setting.

Penny Lane 20:24
Yeah. It was kind of not that many shoot days for a documentary because he was so good on camera; like, every minute we filmed with him was great and usable. So, at a certain point, it was like, oh, like, we kind of, like, have enough, like. So, I remember estimating to him that we might film with him for 20 days or 25 days, it ended up being like half that. Maybe it was 12. Yeah.

Matthew 20:48
And you said you found him, I mean, I think what we see is what we get. What you see what you get with what we see on the screen, a nice personal...

Penny Lane 20:56
I think so.

Matthew 20:58
I mean, friendly, certainly very confident in himself. But I guess you would be, too, if you were the best selling instrumentalist in the world.

Penny Lane 21:05
Yeah.

Matthew 21:06
And maybe the best golfer, music's ever produced and all these other things. I mean, it's - I mean, what were your own personal impressions of him?

Penny Lane 21:14
I love being around Kenny, I mean, you know, even just in the edit, it was like, everyone involved just smiling ear-to-ear, like, all day, every day. Like, he's just kind of a delightful person. You know, I mean, so, you know, again, they're - his character is complicated. And people don't walk out of the film necessarily all being like, he's great and perfect. Like, there's a lot of layers there. But in terms of like, what it's like, just to be around him, like, he's a delightful person. Everywhere I go with him, you know, his interactions with people are just really lovely and sincere. And he, as you said, What You See Is What You Get in a very real way with him. Like, I never saw, like, some other version of Kenny, you know, and obviously, again, I don't know his soul. Like, I've spent a few weeks with him. But, you know, the consistency was there. Like, there was never any other person that would show up when the camera turned off or something.

Matthew 22:09
I mean, he strikes me in that way he is a bit guarded. We don't know what his soul is, in that sense. And I guess he's always been 'Kenny G'; probably there's always been this persona that's Kenny G, as well, that...

Penny Lane 22:22
I think so, yeah. And that's fine with me. Like, my goal in the film was not to be like, let me peel back the layers, and, you know, that wasn't my interest. So, I was kind of, like, for me, like, you know, getting an accurate read on his self-presentation is fine. Like, that feels like enough for me. How he wants you to think about him feels very informative. Like, you know, he really - the thing he cares about the most is he wants everyone to know how hard he works. That's like, that's the thing that he wants you to know. Like, if there's one thing he wants you to know, it's that, like, he works really, really hard. And he is putting in those hours to try to be the best Kenny G he can be.

Matthew 23:01
If there's one thing I'm taking away from this is that he practices three hours a day. I mean, he mentions that I don't know how - but was this always your aim to tell the story this way? I mean, you know, bringing in the critics and fans alike, and how you told the story? Or is that something that evolved as you started filming and working on this?

Penny Lane 23:21
Yeah, I would say what evolved was Kenny, right? So, like, I had this idea. That was very conceptual. It wasn't about, like, Kenny G the person; it was like, kind of using him as, like, a screen upon which I could project these ideas and explore these themes. But I wasn't thinking a lot about, like, who is Kenny G as an artist? How does he think about music? How did he become a musician? Like all that stuff was not. So, what evolved was really the more traditional biographical elements; they made their way in a way that I was like, oh, like, I wasn't really expecting that. But, you know, he's so fascinating that once you've got him, it'd be insane to not try to learn more about him because he's so interesting. Like, it would be, like, negligent as a filmmaker to ignore this fascinating person and try to get to know him. So, the film ended up being quite tricky in post to find the balance, like, you know, how much do we want to hear criticism? How much do we want to hear praise? How much we want to hear about Kenny's story? How much do you want to hear about like, culture at large? So, that was the challenging part, was really trying to find that balance and trying to negotiate how people are thinking about him from like, scene one to scene two to scene three, like, what are the things about him that annoy people? How do I, where do I, position that, you know; how do you give a sense of an arc to this person? All that kind of stuff was more challenging. All the production was really fun.

Matthew 23:36
And then, I mean, at the risk of not being balanced. We go back to these critics and these academics you brought on; I mean, did you find that they slowly, begrudgingly started to acknowledge maybe there was something more to Kenny G than they would like to admit? I won't name names, but a few strike me as being a bit caricatures of themselves in many cases; I won't say who, but...

Penny Lane 25:09
I will say that, like, yes, so, two things. One is that I only cast people with nuance, like people who I knew were gonna come in and be able to think on different levels; like, I would never have cast somebody to come in and just bash Kenny; so, like, the film kind of creates a bit of an artificial feeling of an arc for the critics; like, as if, like, they all kind of come in mad, and they all kind of leave less mad. But that's artificial. I mean, that's filmmaking.

Matthew 25:44
Yeah.

Penny Lane 25:45
You know, in reality, they came in very much doing like, a on the one hand, on the other hand thing, and that was why I picked them, because they were all people with senses of humor, who got it, like, who got that, like, talking about Kenny G was actually really interesting. And who were willing to go there and, like, kind of play with me, and like, you know, play around. And, like, those interviews were really long. And they were very informal. And I think the listening aspect really loosens people up and, like, puts them in more of a casual conversational mode. And so, we went really deep. Those interviews were really fun.

Matthew 26:20
Yeah.

Penny Lane 26:20
I wish I could have used even more of them. But, you know, it's only so much you can cram in there.

Matthew 26:25
Can I - I mean, I should add, for our listeners if it hasn't come across yet, and I do mention this in the intro, but I laughed out loud several times during this film. I mean, this is a humorous take, as well as serious look at a lot of different things; like all great docs, there's many, many facets to him. And I thought this was extremely - I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I mean, it was just kind of - it wasn't what I was necessarily expecting. What was I expecting? I don't know. But it was not the film I was expecting. And I was so thankful for that...

Penny Lane 27:04
Thank you!

Matthew 27:05
And I guess you didn't reach out to Pat Metheny, then, if...

Penny Lane 27:09
Oh no, we did, actually.

Matthew 27:10
Oh, did you?!

Penny Lane 27:11
We reached out to - yeah, we thought about it a long time. Like, should we reach out to Pat Metheny? Like, whatever. And I thought we should because we made his letter such an important - he wrote this, for you that who don't know, he wrote this, like, incendiary...

Penny Lane 27:23
... message board; like, a message board post, you know, in the year 2000. That was, like, very against Kenny G and it went viral. And it, like, is still viral. Like, you know, to this day; like, if you go on Twitter, someone is sharing it right now. Like, it's very - it's had a lot of staying power this message board post from, like, 20 years ago. And I think it's because, you know, the sort of his feeling that he has is very well expressed. And I think a lot of people felt that way. And a lot of people were increasingly annoyed by this person and felt that this Louis Armstrong duet went too far. And so, I think he put voice to a lot of people's frustrations. Anyway, so, we did approach him, and he very politely declined, and that was fine. I thought it would be interesting to ask him questions about it only because - I kind of wonder, like, I mean, I assume he's surprised that this blog post, like, this message, like, think about the internet in the year 2000. Like, I don't think you would think, like, this is something that's going to last for all eternity. Like, I have no idea how he thinks about that now. But it feels like a quite lasting legacy that he has left on this earth and I was curious about that with him. But yeah, I actually love Pat Metheny's music a lot; my producer does as well. We are Pat Metheny fans. That's the weirdness of this whole project, you know, but Pat Metheny wouldn't be in a movie that Pat Metheny fan likes, you know; it's all very confusing.

Matthew 27:23
Screed.

Matthew 28:48
Yeah, it is. It is all very confusing. And I have to put my hands up, I certainly was not a - well, I may have even been a Kenny G hater in my past, so, I do have to come clean with that. But I do think for all the reasons that we won't go into because we're running out of time and, but your film so wonderfully explores, I think for how we all get wrapped up in a sort of Zeitgeist and cultural whatever it is that we get wrapped up in. Certainly, as we're growing up and establishing our musical tastes. I mean, Kenny, Penny, I'm sorry; Penny, continuing, is this film a continuation of a trend for you? Is there a trend here? Nixon to Dr. John Romulus, satanic church, Kenny G. What's next for you?

Penny Lane 29:45
Well, right now I'm making a film about altruistic kidney donation, which is also known as Good Samaritan donation. I'm a Good Samaritan donor. I donated my kidney to a stranger in 2019. And I've been working on this film about it ever since. It's personal and, you know, kind of ethical and whatever, it's cool. It's a cool movie. I don't really know how it's gonna turn out. I'm pretty early in the process, you know, and some other stuff I can't talk about. But yeah, lots of - I mean, I'm just always looking for, like, surprising, I think, angles on things that are important to people. And trying to find, yeah, surprising ways to address those things. I think, you know, no one - I'd like to believe that no one else would have had this idea for this Kenny G film. And, you know, and that somehow, like, that's my thing that I'm good at, is that somehow, I'm good at making films that only I could - would make. So, yeah.

Matthew 30:37
Well, let me second that. And thank you so much for making it cos it's a - we have a lot of great docs on here, but it's one of the most enjoyable ones I've seen recently, that's for sure. So, I do appreciate that. And I want to thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. And just to say thank you again, Penny Lane, director, listening to Kenny G. Do watch it. If you're in North America, it's out on HBO and HBO Max from December 2, and the rest of us will just have to wait, but I'm sure it will be out very soon. So, Penny, thank you again.

Penny Lane 31:11
Thank you. This was fun.

Matthew 31:12
I'd like to give a shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound audio in Escrick, England. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting such great guests like Penny onto the show. And finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you. So, please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 31:45
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guest, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk.