Most people wouldn’t associate Kenny Loggins with jazz.
Best known for his hit songs for movies like Footloose, Caddy Shack and Top Gun, his chart-topping stint in Loggins and Messina and his foray into parent-targeted children’s music, Loggins’ earlier days as a recording artist included long instrumental and improvisational passages with L&M, a few prodigious albums produced by Bob James, projects that included guitar work from Lee Ritenour, Tommy Tedesco, Steve Khan, Eric Gale, Robben Ford, Hugh McCracken, Dean Parks and Hiram Bullock and a string of albums that featured saxophonist Michael Brecker, David Sanborn and Mark Russo, percussionists Paulinho DaCosta and Ralph McDonald, drummers Steve Gadd and Harvey Mason, bassist Nathan East and vocalists Lani Hall and Patti Austin. Connecting the dots, all four founding members of Fourplay had played on Kenny Loggins albums decades before the band coalesced. Loggins was (no pun intended) an instrumental player in the Zeitgeist of what is now called smooth jazz, casting some of today’s most credible contemporary jazz musicians and launching their own solo careers.
Publisher Michael Fagien sat down with the iconic singer-songwriter to discuss Loggins’ life, love, work, family and his new book. He tells it all on the latest episode of JAZZIZ NOT WHAT YOU THINK.