Kenny Garrett

With 30 million records sold, Kenny G is by far the most popular, and most hated, man in jazz, if you even grant him that categorization. His degree was in business, and his skill with contracts achieved coups such as his duet to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” — sacrilege to those who ignore how crappy the original strings are. And he certainly knows niche marketing. But his greatest breakthrough has been in brain chemistry, where he’s discovered neurons that, when stimulated by his unnaturally pretty soprano sax, cause some people intense pain and others mild anesthetic pleasure.