Zibby interviews Kenny G—the incomparable musician with the straight sax, the flowing hair, and some of the most memorable melodies in history—about his indelible, fascinating, upbeat, and funny memoir, LIFE IN THE KEY OF G. Kenny shares the creative process behind his audiobook (which incorporates live saxophone performances to enhance the listening experience) and then describes the challenges of capturing his true, authentic voice in writing. He also reflects on his rigorous daily routine, his role as a father, and some pivotal moments in his life, from standing up to his mother in his 20s to recording what would become the best-selling Christmas album of all time.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Kenny G. Thank you for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Life In The Key Of G. Congrats. 

Kenny: Uh, thanks. I hope some moms make time to read that one. 

Zibby: They're definitely going to make time to read this one. Yes. Do you have like an accompanying song that you wrote just for the book or anything like that?

Like, is there something? 

Kenny: The audio book has me doing a lot of sax playing in it because as the, as the story was told and there were things that were, you know, left like, Hey, here's what a soprano sax sounds like. Or no, I w I wouldn't say that in the book, but I would say something like, well, I got a soprano saxophone and, and then I would add in the audio book, by the way, listeners.

This is what it sounds like. So that's not in that book, but that's the audio book. I think it's pretty cool because live a lot of chance to throw a lot of sacks on there. And I think it's cool. 

Zibby: Wow. That's amazing. Great idea. I will definitely listen to that when that comes out as well. But I loved reading the print book though, cause I'm a print book person mostly.

Um, and this was so great. I've learned so much. so much about you and your journey. And I actually mentioned you at dinner with my kids the other night because I was like, my son is now taking the trumpet much to the dismay of our neighbors here in New York City. And I was like, you know, Kenny G still practices the saxophone three hours a day, every day.

And, and he's like a master. And they were like, no way. So, 

Kenny: yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's why we had to do our interview at this point in time because I need my morning. I'm all done. And half done with my workout. So that's kind of my, I have a job every day, self inflicted, which is like my sacks for three hours and I do my, about an hour of exercising.

So I did half of it already, which is the cardio part. Uh, and I, and so for me, since I'm so skinny, I actually break my workout into two parts because I feel like if I'm. wake up and practice and then do my exercise by the time I eat. It's, it's too late. Um, my body needs, I think it needs some energy. So, and I'm not even really that hungry, but I make myself eat.

So I'm, um, after we're done, I will go to the rest of my workout and then I have the rest of the day to just. Today's really a free day for me. I have nothing to do. 

Zibby: Amazing. 

What do you do? What do you do on a day where you have nothing to do? 

Kenny: Well, that's a good question. I'm probably going to just think of things that I could do better and work on that.

Like work on my French all the time. I'm working. So I'll probably watch some, some videos online about French and how I can learn to speak it better. And maybe I will clean something around the house that I've been noticing needs cleaning or repairing and I'll work on something. I'll come up with something.

Zibby: Interesting. Okay. Well, your book lays out that you are not afraid of hard work. So, you know, the cleaning should come as no surprise, but the everything you do, you kind of throw yourself into and work really hard at. And I love how you said at one point in the book that You still feel like there's something you can learn from every rehearsal, that you're a student of the saxophone still, and that it never ends.

Like, how do you have that approach, like how do you maintain that approach to everything that you do? That it's all just, you are the student, and you will learn. How does that come about, and how do you keep it going? 

Kenny: Well, I honestly, I think that's what, I think that's what life is, is, I mean, if let's say, if you didn't think you had anything to learn, then what's, what's, where's the fun?

Where's the fun of the day? Like, okay, I, yeah, I'm, I'm hoping I'll learn something today. I'll walk around, I'll see something and I'll, every day I'll go, I'll say something like, Oh, I didn't realize that about whatever it is. And then I'll go with him. Glad I'm glad I noticed that or something like that.

And, you know, even when I travel, like I'm going to go to the airport on Sunday and I'm sure that when I'm on my flight, something I'll trigger something and I'll go, and that's what I do every day, all day long about anything. And that's what makes life fun for me is to see what there is to learn. Sure.

It's nice to think that, you know, what you're doing. But also I'm really enjoy, I enjoy learning how to do things that are interesting to me. So yeah, it's just the way I'm, I'm way I'm wired. I don't know how, I don't, I don't know if you can, I don't know. It doesn't seem like it'd be hard to teach. It's just, it's like a curiosity.

Like when did, when did people lose their curiosity? I never lost mine. 

Zibby: I totally agree with that, and I love your whole approach that, like, you're not afraid of hard things. I say that a lot, too. I'm like, okay, yeah, this sounds hard, but okay, great. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Like, then you do it, and it's a challenge, and it's fun, but I feel like that's your approach to life, which is great.

Kenny: Yeah, because I don't give myself too, well, I used to give myself a little time constraint, and that made it harder. So if you want to do something that's hard and you'd have to do it by Tuesday at 10 o'clock, that might be hard. It may be unrealistic. And I would give myself those unrealistic goals and I'd still do them mostly like maybe less than 90 percent of the time I would get it done.

And the 10 percent that I couldn't do, I didn't even give myself a break for that, but I've learned to do that in my later years. So now I, I do like to tackle really hard things, But I give myself realistic time frame to get it done. And then that makes everything fun. Cause then it's no, there's no pressure.

I mean, obviously, yeah, you might have to, like, if I need to learn a solo and play it on a TV show by a certain day, I'll just work hard enough to get that done. But other than those things, it's mainly, you know, like I want to make Booyah bass. You know, I really wanted to do it the other day. I just got that idea and I go, okay, I'm going to do it.

And I got, and I, and it was already six o'clock at night and I was, ah, I really want it, but you know what? It's too late. It's gonna take me too long. I'm gonna do it tomorrow. So I had the whole day and it was really fun. Really fun. I took my time, you know. How did it taste? It tasted, it came out great. My son said it was really, really good.

But it was like making everything, like getting the fish and like cutting up the fish and using the head and the bones and starting a stock and just letting that process. It was really fun for me because I had I hadn't done it like that before and I wanted to learn, now I know how to do it. So if I ever want to do it again, I realize how much time it takes and maybe I might just order in instead.

Zibby: Just like two seconds. But it never tastes as good, right? I mean, it's not made with the love and all of that. 

Kenny: Well, I'm sure there's some restaurants that could do it a lot better than me, I'm sure. 

Zibby: Okay, fine. 

Kenny: I don't have any Michelin stars, but you know, that's the, now, now, see, that's the kind of thing that I would do with my, my son or sons or wherever, you know, if, if they're home and hey.

You guys want, let's do this together. And then it would be fun. Cause we're chit chatting while, while we do the, the, that thing. And that's fun. It's fun. I like doing stuff like that with people. I want to be around. Cause then I like the chit chat while, while you're doing something. If you're like even repairing something, painting something, fixing something, building something, it's like, yeah, okay, well let's do it but while we're doing it, you know, tell me more about this or that. And we're trying to do a job. It's fun. I love that kind of stuff. 

Zibby: I did that with my younger daughter. She wanted to paint a mural and in the house somewhere. And I was like, let's do it. Let's just like paint a bathroom, whatever. If it's not good, whatever.

And we had the best time, you know. 

Kenny: How to come out.

I don't know. Whatever the color was white before. 

Zibby: She painted in black. So then we had to, oh my God, we had to go back to the paint store. Now one wall is yellow. One wall is blue. It's fine. We're just going to leave it. But. 

Kenny: Yeah, black's kind of tough to do over, you know. 

Zibby: It was tough. A lot of coats. But the point is, we had fun.

We made a memory. And I feel like that is in your book too, is like all this parenting advice that I wasn't expecting on raising your boys and what that was like, everything from sleep on, you know, obviously being a dad is really important to you. And it was great to even have that, that lens to learn about.

Kenny: Well, you know, that was, that chapter was up for discussion a lot in the writing process. My partner that wrote it with me, Phil, uh, who, who you, you know, his name's on there as well. He's, he's a great guy. I didn't want it in the book, but our writing sessions were, were like zoom sessions because he lives in New York.

I think he's probably, I think he's close to you, 70th and. No, but you're on park. So you're not, you're not, you're, he's on the West side. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Kenny: Part of the East side. So yeah, at least I know that. So. 

Zibby: I'll go out now and try to find him. 

Kenny: Yeah, well, he's a great guy, but yeah, I, I thought, you know, Phil, like this is, this has come out of nowhere and people who cares what I think about this stuff, but we would have our talks on zoom.

That was my point. And he would get, he would just ask me questions and we would just chit chat for hours. And then when he started to Suggested All these ideas that we talked about verbally and he wrote down, I go, Phil, I don't, this is going to sound like I'm what's the word like pontificating. And I don't want to be that way.

And also who cares what I think about parenting that I'm not, I'm not an expert. He goes, no, no, this is really, really good. You got to put it in there. And I fought him on it and then I lost because he just convinced me and I think we had other people chime in and they said, leave it in there. So there, there you go.

It's in there again. I'm not sure when I read it, I go, uh, cause I skipped that chapter because he just kept on with the music. But maybe it's better. Maybe the book's better with it. 

Zibby: Well, I mean, everybody can relate to all the things you talk about in the parenting section. I think people can feel like, well, what do I, you know, do I have something in common?

He's this, you know, famous person, but it's like, no, we're all putting our kids to bed together. Do you know, like, how are we doing this and how is he doing that? And it, you know, I think it's nice. 

Kenny: I like to see Phil, if Phil would have told me that I wouldn't have fought him. He went, that wasn't his argument.

His argument was, oh, this is really good stuff. And it's all this stuff. And, but that's, that's, I get that. That makes sense to me. Sure. And I'm glad. I'm glad. I mean, I'm I hope people can relate to me. Um, obviously not everybody can relate to standing on a stage and playing in front of 10, 000 people other than people that do that.

I have actually a really good friend, Richard Marks, the singer. Yep. And we are really good friends. And actually saw him last week. We spent the we went out to dinner and we were saying, telling each other how nice it is to have somebody that you can talk to about the details of your life that knows it because they do it.

Like we, he plays a lot of the same venues that I play. I see his pictures up on the backstage walls and we can talk about this and that. Maybe we can even talk about our financial situation, which I'd never really talk about, but because we're the same vibe and he would play it for about the same number of people.

So. It's all cool. So to your point of having somebody to relate to, if people can relate to that story and hopefully other parts of the book, then that's good too. But, you know, obviously the, the part where it comes to, to being on the Johnny Carson show and that kind of stuff, you know, that's, of course you can't relate to it.

And I, hopefully I'm sharing stories that entertain. 

Zibby: Yes. Well, you write in a way that makes everyone feel like they're your friend. Like that we're all just like sitting there and you're just telling us the stories and it's a very approachable way. Narrative. So, that's good. 

Kenny: Thank you. Thank you. Well, I can tell you this.

Even, you know, when, when people say to you, oh, who, who, who helped you write the book? Well, I tell them, of course, it's Phil, he's great. But Phil will, will chime in. I went through every word. It wasn't like he wrote it and I just kind of filled in the blanks. It was like, I'm going to rewrite the, the first hundred pages, Phil, that you sent, I'm going to rewrite every page, which I did.

It took me about three weeks. I sent it back to him and he goes, okay. Okay. I get your vibe now. Cause I want it. Cause it wasn't the first draft. Wasn't my vibe. Yep. Perfectly. Very good though. He's really a good writer. I said, but Phil, there's something that's not, you're not, it doesn't sound like I'm saying it.

So I rewrote everything sent back to him. He goes, I get your vibe, but it looks like a high school student wrote it. I said, no offense taken. I'm not, I'm not. I said, okay, so Phil, you take my vibe and make me sound smart. And like, like I'm a good writer. He goes, I'm going to do that. And he sent back the next draft and it was like, wow, this is me smarter and better.

And Phil, me, I said, good job, Phil. And then we were off to the races. So it was, that was, that was the process. 

Zibby: Oh, wow. Okay. Well, rewriting a hundred pages is no joke. I mean, that takes a lot of. 

Kenny: It's a lot of time. And also I'm writing it with, and I'm thinking about myself, which is not fun. I'm analyzing like, how am I talking about myself and how is it coming out?

And is this really getting across what I'm trying to get across? And then also I wanted to sound, sound like intelligent. So as you, as you read it, as you say it. Which I found with the audio book, when I did the audio book, I had to change some of the sentences because they read really well, but that's not the way I would talk.

And I told the guy who I was working with on the audio, can I change this? He goes, yeah, absolutely. So I said, great, great. I thought I was stuck to every word because it's like, this doesn't, I would never talk like this, but it reads right. He goes, yeah, yeah. Just change it. So it was great. That way.

Zibby: Interesting. Yeah. Interesting process. There was one part of your book. Tell us all about your relationship with your parents and your mother. And you are very sympathetic to why she would yell at you often and that it came from a good place and all of that. But then you have this moment in the book where you're in your 20s, 30s, late 20s, and finally you decide like, okay, and you stood up to her, and, can I read this part? Do you mind? Can I read these paragraphs? I don't 

Kenny: mind. Go for it. 

Zibby: Speaking of, like, relatable, like, everybody has to sort of break away from their parents at some point, or individuate, or whatever. So anyway, I felt like this was, anyway, you said, One day I was in the kitchen cooking some rice, and she came downstairs and started screaming at me that the rice, that the smell of rice was stinking up her house.

For some reason, her yelling at me at that moment hit me like a brick. Everything I had held inside me for all those years, all those unconscious feelings, trying to please her, and so often feeling like it was never quite enough, it all came pouring out of me like I had left the top on the pressure cooker too long.

And the rice finally exploded. Mom, I'm almost 30 years old, I said calmly and firmly, though on the inside I was pretty angry. The days of you yelling at me are over. You don't tell me what to do in my own house, she said in the most threatening voice she can muster. I remained calm but firm, and somewhere between a growl and a yell came my response.

I'm a grown man now, and you are not going to yell at me. Do you hear me? And do you understand me? I got right up in her face and said, you need to start talking to me with respect. Have I made myself clear? She immediately backed down. And then later you said, We all have things we carry with us. Everyone has burdens they've had to bear.

Some of us learn to let them go when we're young. Sometimes it takes into your 20s or 30s. Some I'm still carrying and just learning to let go of now. But to anyone who feels they've carried their burden long enough and that it's time to lay that burden down, I don't care if you're 16 or 60, I am here to tell you that I'm living proof of the simple fact you're right.

It's time to let it go and just know that it's okay to let it go. 

I love it. Love that. 

Kenny: I do, too. I really love that, too. Yeah, great. Thank you for reading that. 

Zibby: You're welcome. I'll just read the whole book. We could just do an audiobook, you know, redo over here. 

Kenny: Honestly, the way you read that is way better than the way I read it.

I wish you would have done the audiobook instead of me. 

Zibby: I don't think anyone would want that. Well, the reason that really stuck with me is it's so It's such a turning point for you in your, like, growing up, which we get to watch you do through the book. And you do it in a respectful way, but you're saying to the rest of us, like, okay, like, we all have those moments.

And like, if I can do it, you can do it. Having that courage and like the role model ness of that is really important. 

Kenny: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, you know, even, even when you've got all that anger, I still didn't want my mom, I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I wasn't trying to be mean to her. My brother was not like that with her.

And I always felt bad for my mom, even though she was wrong. And my brother was right, but he would get mad at her. And I always felt sorry for her that she was, you know, You know, like she had to endure whatever my brother did to her, you know, however he talked and stuff, not that it happened all the time, but when it did, uh, and so I, I just never wanted to be that mean to her, but it was time.

It was really time to stop, you know, I just couldn't handle it anymore. And, and if you see, if you, as you're reading the book so many times in the book, people start yelling, I realized when I read the book, when I wrote, I go, you know, I was talking to Phil, I said, Phil, do you know how many times in the book we talk about people yelling at me?

Why does everybody have to start yelling at me? And they just do people just think that the yelling is going to, it really has no, no effect on me. And, and so I, I have a lot of experience with it with, from my mom. And now when anyone yells, I just kind of smile inside and go, gosh, I am so ready to deal with this.

It's no problem. 

Zibby: Yeah, all that training. All that training. Three hours a day. 

Kenny: I know. And, uh, too, too bad my mom, you know, I remember because she was a smoker and she smoked like packs a day. I'm not sure if that, I know she had, she had stomach cancer. Yeah. I'm not sure if the hell smoking was a cause of her death, but certainly didn't help.

I bet she could have lived longer, but, and she never got a chance to see my kids. Never. That's sad. Yeah. Unfortunately. 

But she does get to see me at Carnegie Hall. 

Zibby: Well, that's nice. 

Kenny: Right. 

Zibby: So there's that. 

Kenny: I don't know if I talked about that in the book. Did I talk about that part? I don't remember. I don't think, I think, yeah.

There's a picture of her with my Carnegie Hall poster, but I remember that night. This isn't in the book. So now you get a little extra. 

Zibby: Oh, yeah. 

Kenny: The night Clive Davis was there with me and, and it was sold out. I've never played there since it was 1987. It's never been back to Carnegie hall since thinking, Oh, I sold out.

I'll go and come back here all the time. And I don't know why I'm not back there, but anyway, sold out. I remember Clive going up to my mom and saying, uh, Mrs. Gorlick, uh, aren't you proud of your son? And her answer was, I have two sons, like, don't, don't, you know, like, don't give me any of the, don't give me, I'm thinking, wow, yeah, I know, I love my brother too, and I know he's doing great, but you know, tonight's my night, mom.

Zibby: Yeah. 

Kenny: And she just couldn't do it. She just couldn't do it. It was so, and it made me, it made me a little sad. It didn't, it didn't hurt me too badly because I was kind of used to being under the radar, which was a good thing. But I didn't like that at all. And I didn't write a book cause I don't think I wanted to write it.

Cause I think it might come out like me saying something bad about it, but I'm just sharing with you that that was part of just my role in our family dynamic was I was this middle kid, which was great under the radar. Great. Nobody paid too much attention to me. Great means I could play my sacks, do my thing.

And nobody was worried too much about. What school I was going to go to, what I was going to do with my free time. Like she was focused on my brother and my younger sister, which was great for me. So there you go. That's that's that was a downside of that. The upside was I was given a lot of freedom to do what I wanted.

Zibby: That's hurtful though. I mean, if you were. If you were saying that to one of your sons, you would. 

Kenny: But she, you know, and, but now I see that just her flying to New York from Seattle to watch me, that's her showing me that she loves me and she's going to support me. But when Clive wanted to tell her to say out loud in the words, I'm proud of your son.

Well, I've got two sons. Yeah. My other, my, my, his brother is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking, great. That is great. Okay. Do and he's great and he's doing great and I've no, I never, my brother and I, as you see in the book, we're never had a fight and we've always had a great relationship. So it's all great.

I wasn't upset that she talked about my brother. 

Zibby: No, I know. I know. I know, 

Kenny: but come on. I'm in Carnegie hall Yeah, I mean every mother's dream like how do you get to be all practice practice practice? That's how you get there. 

Zibby: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you for telling me that story. I'm sorry it happened, but I understand.

Everybody shows their love in different ways. So that's right. That's right. Or you have a very good therapist or something. I don't know. Or both. 

Kenny: How about both? 

Zibby: Yeah, let's go with both. You were funny towards the end of the book, you were talking about how, you know, this Jewish kid who blows the shofar in Temple is now suddenly doing a Christmas album.

You know, so tell me a little bit about, about that and, and even your Jewish identity. I'm publishing this anthology that I, I edited called On Being Jewish Now with 75 essays by contributors after, you know, with essays about post October 7th and all that. But anyway, I was wondering about your, your whole experience with, with that.

And I know you, Irving Berlin, you know. 

Kenny: Yeah, well, that's, yeah, that's funny how that all came out. And it really, as I say in the book, but it started with me playing White Christmas at my concerts. And the reason we played it was because it was like one of those things that just was like, I like to do when I do my concerts, like to do songs sometimes that people would not expect or even they, they don't even want it.

Like why would you want to hear White Christmas in June? 

Zibby: Right. 

Kenny: We would play it like I would, I know, I know it's something like, am I sure I would say something like, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to go over to my keyboard player. Who's my high school friend. Every show. And this is me talking to the audience every night.

We just play a duet, the two of us, let me go over there and let's see what we're going to come up with. So I go over to Robert and I go, Hey, what do you want to play? He goes, bro, it's up to you. I said, um, let's do White Christmas. The way we played it rehearsal. He goes, he goes, do you want to do that tonight?

It'll be fun. So we played it and people loved it. And then I got compliments on that White Christmas. So when Clive said, Hey, you should do a Christmas record after breathless was so popular. I sold like 12 million records and Christmas records in the 1990s were considered like corny to do artists. It's like playing in Vegas.

If you had a gig in Vegas, Vegas, that was super corny. And you didn't want to, you didn't want to do that. It was, that was for Wayne Newton. That wasn't, that wasn't for an artist that's, that's got popularity. And that's, that's doing, you know, big gigs at, uh, at big venues like Jones beach or Carnegie hall or Radio City Music Hall.

You don't play Vegas and you don't do Christmas records. Christmas records are for Nat King Cole and, and Johnny Mathis. So Clive said that, I said, Clive, really? He goes, yeah, you know, I think it'd be, I think it will work. I go, okay, well, first of all, I'm Jewish. So why would I do it? He goes, well, I'm Jewish.

And Irving Berlin is Jewish. And he wrote White Christmas, the song that you play. I said, okay, I'll tell you what, Clive, let me actually record the White Christmas. I know it sounds good live. We record it and let me see what it sounds like. So we recorded orchestra and I listened, I went, okay, this is beautiful.

This is beautiful. And I don't even feel like it's a Christmas song. I just feel like it's a melody with a, with, with me playing the way that I do. And it's got this beautiful string arrangements and then like a beautiful piano part. Let's just do the right. Let's do some more songs like that. Let's try like a silent night.

It's going to be beautiful. So we just, did that. And it came out beautifully. And at the end of it all, Clive says, it's great, Kenny, but it needs vocal Clive. That's the whole point. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to have a vocal. I said, oh, I said no. And he goes, yes. I said, okay, well then let's get Whitney because Whitney has just.

He, she's the number one artist in the world at that point, he goes, I don't think I can deliver Whitney. I said, well then get Barbra Streisand. No, I don't think I can do that. 

Zibby: You had that moment though with Whitney, didn't you? You said you had that like moment looking deep into her eyes and everything.

Kenny: Exactly. Come on. 

Zibby: What the heck? 

Kenny: I know. What the heck? We should have done that. And then I said, okay, the only one I could say is Pavarotti then. Get Pavarotti. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can deliver you the third of the three of the tenors. The, what was it? The Three Tenors? 

Zibby: Mm-Hmm. . 

Kenny: You know, it was Pavar, it was, uh, Plato de Domingo, and it was the, see the third one?

You can't remember his name, but it's like a, that guy. It's the guy that, that, that, it's like the guy that's like Jose Conseco, but it's not Jose Conseco. It's something like that. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Kenny: I'm gonna get, anyway, I, I said I forget it then. I don't want to do it. And then so we just sat there, we fought about it until like October 15th.

And then my manager said, hey guys, this record needs to be released. What's going to happen? I said, Clyde, he goes, ah, well then it's too long with too many instrumentals. Take some time. So I had to make it shorter. I had to take two of the instrumentals off and we released it. Then it becomes the biggest Christmas record of all time.

So So I, I think I'm right. And then Clive, I said, Clive, you know, how about that? He goes, yeah, well, if you would have listened to me, would it on way better? 

Zibby: No. 

Kenny: But, but he, we all said with smiles, even the fighting, the smiles is here. So anyway, that that's how the Christmas record came about. 

Zibby: Well, thank you so much for your time.

I'm excited to have you at the store sometime and thank you for the book. I really, really enjoyed it. 

Kenny: I appreciate that. Thanks. Thanks for the promotion. 

Zibby: Thank you, bye.