Identifying Smooth Jazz Arists

"Jazz" is broad term.  To many, as is "smooth jazz".  Where one person classifies something as smooth jazz, another may disagree with him.

In order to come up with a system that allows me to identify key smooth jazz artists reliably, I've searched several prominent music websites and searched for artists with the genre filtered to smooth jazz.  Below are several of the websites I've looked at:

http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/smooth-jazz-ma0000002860 - "AllMusic provides comprehensive music info including reviews and biographies. Get recommendations for new music to listen to, stream or own"

https://play.spotify.com/artist/6cDvKdeDz7LLeG2oPdUdxU?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open - Offers a desktop software to listen music by streaming with the possibility to create and share playlists.

http://www.last.fm/tag/smooth%20jazz - Discover more music. Last.fm is a music discovery service that gives you personalised recommendations based on the music you listen to. 

http://www.napster.co.uk/search?query=Smooth%20jazz - 

http://www.smoothjazz.com - The best 24/7, online, Smooth Jazz Internet Radio station

http://www.jazzradio.com/smoothjazz - Presenting jazz radio channels for your enjoyment. Listen for free and enjoy countless hours of the best jazz music around.

By browsing these various sites I've been able to identify several key smooth jazz artists for me to study - A handful of artists who's names have come up regularly on each site are:

George Benson

Kenny G

Joe Sample

David Benoit

Chris Botti

Fourplay

These are the artists that have come up most regularly in my search for smooth jazz artists.  I'll be looking at each of these artists and will look in depth at the key musical traits each artists share in their voicing and use of harmony.  This will enable me to get a clearer idea of how a smooth jazz reharmonisation should sound and will let me better evaluate my own work at the end of the semester.

J