What is smooth jazz? Example: George Benson - The Ghetto

The Ghetto is a piece of music written and performed by George Benson.  The song one of the most popular from Benson's album "Absolute Benson", featuring keyboard player Joe Sample, who is also well associated with the Smooth Jazz style.

The song is around 115 bpm, featuring a steady latin based groove.  The song is in 4/4 and is based on two chords - Abm7 and Dbmaj9.  There are no stand out sections of the song where the harmony goes incredibly dissonant, and the piece remains in 4/4 throughout the whole piece.

The improvised solos are based on the blues scale - there are few if any diminished or altered runs in any of the solos, nothing that goes too far outside of the chords apart from the sharpened fourth (or flattened fifth...), the "blues" note that gives the solo most of its crunch.   This song is a fine example of a smooth jazz piece.

This song may not be an example of a reharmonized piece but the stylistic elements - the simple funk based harmony, straight groove and easy-to-listen-to feel encapsulates the feel I should be aiming to achieve when reharmonizing and playing the tunes I'm looking to reharmonize.

J