Smooth, but not flat: Phil Denny’s Smooth Jazz Fête bristles with chart toppers

Have you ever tossed four buckets in a row without looking at the hoop? Phil Denny, saxophonist and impresario of Lansing’s Armory Smooth Jazz Fête, made a happy discovery after booking this year’s festival.

All the artists on Saturday’s slate have had No. 1 hits on the Billboard charts, the first lineup of its kind in the event’s eight-year history.

“I didn’t plan it. It just worked out that way,” he said.

Denny, of course, is one of those chart toppers.

Under Denny’s aegis, the Fête has made Lansing an annual destination for fans of the chill vibe of smooth jazz and has drawn some of the genre’s biggest names.

This year’s headliner is California-based guitarist, songwriter and producer Michael “Big Mike” Hart, who is making his first visit to Lansing and sounds genuinely thrilled. Far from thinking of Michigan as flyover territory, he considers it to be sacred musical ground.

“I think about Michigan as a place of rich musical history, full of talent,” Hart said. “It’s been a foundation for music for the country, and it’s good to headline a festival with all that history around, to set foot on that soil.”

Hart grew up in Sacramento, California, amid a musical family. His father was a DJ, and his uncles sang and played guitar in a gospel group.

“I was around music and records all the time,” he said.

“I just fell in love with the guitar — the sound, the chords.” He loved Prince and Jimi Hendrix, and he fondly recalls renting VHS tapes of MTV’s “Unplugged” series from Hollywood Video and studying them over and over.

But mastering the guitar was not enough for Hart. He admired the craft of singer-songwriters such as Babyface and James Taylor. Like Babyface, he wanted to produce and shape his own recordings, from idea to finished product. He’s now an accomplished songwriter, arranger, producer and owner of Rhythm Section Studios in Los Angeles, a busy hub for area musicians.

In January 2024, Hart’s buzzy, mentholated debut single “Cigar Lounge,” featuring celebrated R&B saxophonist Boney James, soared to No. 1 on the Billboard smooth jazz chart.

Listeners accustomed to the same-old smooth stuff appreciated the extra mojo in Hart’s intricate guitar work and his high production standards.

“I try not to make it so cookie-cutter for radio,” he said. “I don’t like the words ‘smooth jazz.’ I’m so much more as an overall musician and producer. I gravitated to the genre because it was right for where I am in my life. I understood the formula and was able to do it at a high level.”

On guitar, Hart dances nimbly between simplicity and complexity. 

“You want to write a melodic hook that anybody can sing and hum,” he said. “But you also want just enough kick for them to say, ‘Oh, man, he’s playing.’ You let your ad libs show what you can do.”

He loves working in the studio, but he welcomes the chance to stretch out of its technical, commercial and time constraints at an outdoor festival.

“Not, like, playing a thousand notes, but having real band moments, playing as a unit like Earth, Wind & Fire or Spyro Gyra,” he said. “When you have the band, man, you can really push the limits.” 

Denny called Hart “a powerhouse entertainer with a very electric show.”

“I like interactions and transitions,” Hart said. “Things that create a show, where you’re not just going song-talk-song-talk.”

Hart and his partner in music production, Buddy Bangs, go by the nickname of Bigs and Bangs. The duo produced Denny’s second Billboard No. 1 hit, “Urban Troubador,” in 2020. Hart is also the touring guitarist for Boney James, whom Denny called his “No. 1 idol and influence.” It so happened that the same week Denny’s “Urban Troubador,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard smooth jazz chart, James was No. 2. The acolytes had surpassed their master.

“That made me feel a certain kind of way, because he’s my idol,” Denny said. “It’s kind of unreal, like, ‘Do I deserve this?’”

Hart said it’s only a sign that Denny is “doing the right thing.”

“In this business, sometimes your idols become your rivals,” Hart said. “Phil should just pat himself on the back for the hard work he’s done studying someone like Boney.”

The word “fête” expresses the party side of “festival,” but the chill vibe doesn’t make it less of a musical experience.

Dynamic trumpeter Lin Rountree, also on the slate Sunday, invoked some sacred jazz names, like Roy Hargrove, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, to describe his approach to music. (Rountree was scheduled to play the Fête in 2022, but the event was rained out, so he’s overdue to hit the Armory stage.)

“I want to play with fire and intensity and soul,” Rountree said. “People who come to my show say they didn’t know the trumpet could sound like that.”

Rountree’s musical passions lean more toward R&B, but he absorbed a lot of jazz while studying music at Florida A&M University, the former stomping grounds of saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley and a frequent stop for trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

“The improvisation, the technical ability, the ability to speak in a special language on the bandstand is what really intrigues me about jazz,” he said. “But I was raised on hip-hop, R&B, gospel. Jazz was in my head, but it wasn’t in my soul.”

Another top-charting luminary on Sunday’s slate is keyboardist-composer-educator Kayla Waters, daughter of saxophonist Kim Waters, whom Denny declared “one of the founders of smooth jazz.”

“She brings a lot of light,” Denny said.

In past years, the Fête has erupted into impromptu jams, with multiple headliners sharing the stage. 

“We’ve got some surprises,” Hart said. “You might see Phil or Lin on stage with me, or both of them. It’s all about the camaraderie with an amazing set of artists. I’ve never played a festival with Kayla, so I’m looking forward to that, too.”

The Fête is a one-day fling, but this year, Denny has also arranged day-before and day-after “bookend” events. A Friday night “soul jazz happy hour” at the AC Hotel on Michigan Avenue will feature Detroit saxophonist LaDarrel Johnson (under the sobriquet “Saxappeal”). A smooth jazz brunch Sunday at Toscana, on the first floor of the AC Hotel, will be serenaded by flutist Brandon Marceal. The festival will also feature a community painting project (it’s paint by number, so no excuses for not taking the plunge) and an array of food trucks.