== This A&M/CTI debut album by George Benson signaled the arrival of a true star in the jazz scene. Creed Taylor signed Benson immediately after Wes Montgomerys passing in 1968 -- he was being groomed for it by Verves house producer, Esmond Edwards, and arranger, Tom McIntosh, before he ever came to CTI. Taylor paired Benson with arranger Don Sebesky (who had done plenty of work on Montgomerys A&M sides) and engineer Rudy Van Gelder. Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter (both members of the Miles Davis Quintet with whom Benson had guested earlier that year), bassist Richard Davis, and pianist Hank Jones were all guests. Bensons core band for these dates included organist Charlie Covington, drummer Leo Morris, and conguero Johnny Pacheco. The usual strings, supplemental horns, and backing voices in certain places (all Sebesky trademarks) are in place as well. All the stuff is here for Benson to fit neatly into the Montgomery mold -- except for one thing: Benson is a strong-willed artist. He wasnt going anywhere he didnt want to go and insisted on a certain amount of control on the date, and its all for the better. This is one steamy little album that starts innocently enough with a lithe soul-jazz tune called Footin It, written by Benson and Sebesky. The flutes and cellos answer the head played by Benson. The strings fall in exotically as Benson begins to stretch and Covington answers with funk. Bensons guitar is not as smooth as Montgomerys; there is a defined edge in it and its deep in the cut. Another interesting move was an experiment by Benson to use the Varitone device with Les Paul-like variable speed overdubs on his guitar. Covington alternately talks back and drones as Davis digs hard into the changes and keeps it simple but pronounced. Pacheco, like Benson, just goes nuts. By the time the strings and flute enter near the end your mind is already blown. Barry Mann wrote the cut as the theme song for a teensploitation flick called Wild in the Streets, and it was performed by Davie Allan & the Arrows. Benson turns it into a solid psychedelic soul-jazz number -- no grooves get lost; they just get under your skin. And so it goes through this set, from the radical revision of Chattanooga Choo Choo to Teddy White and Aretha Franklins Dont Let Me Lose This Dream, a sweeping, slightly Latinized soul number given full jazz treatment -- the only facsimile concession that Benson makes to the Montgomery memory on the disc. Sebeskys huge brass arrangements pump the tune into something really progressive and tight. Covington soars on it as well, but leaves plenty of space for Bensons righteous solo. Benson contributes his own nocturnal jazzy blues with Shape of Things That Are and Were, as if to say Im not Wes; that was yesterday. Sebeskys horn chart is punchy and underscores the blues in the tune, and the guitarist plays a killer solo in a relaxed, open manner, seducing the listener for the closer. Introduced by a lonesome, blues-drenched harmonica playing solo, as if in a freight yard, Benson and Sebesky turn in a funky jazz rave-up of Boyce & Harts hit Last Train to Clarksville. Other than the overly familiar melody line, this cut just takes off, with big bright horns, Morris double-timing the band, Carter half-timing it, and Benson digging into both multi-string chord leads and single-string leads that he twins with Covingtons organ about halfway through his break -- this is the sendoff this brilliant album deserves. Shape of Things to Come is the true signal of Bensons arrival, not only as a major soloist, but as an artist who refuses to be pinned down four decades later. Hes a pop star, a genius guitarist, a singer, a songwriter, and even now his own man. This is an album that deserves its classic status and wears it well these many years later. == Having taken Benson along with him when he founded CTI, Creed Taylor merely leaves the guitarist alone with a small group on his first release. The payoff is a superb jazz session where Benson rises to the challenge of the turbulent rhythm section of Jack DeJohnette and Ron Carter, with Clarence Palmer ably manning the organ. Benson is clearly as much at home with DeJohnettes advanced playing as he was in soul/jazz (after all, he did play on some Miles Davis sessions a few years before), and his tone is edgier, with more bite, than it had been for awhile. The lyrical Benson is also on eloquent display in Ode to a Kudu (heard twice on the CD, as is All Clear), and there is even a somewhat experimental tilt toward Afro-Cuban-Indian rhythms in Somewhere to the East. A must-hear for all aficionados of Bensons guitar. == The R&B elements get stronger, the sound and mix are more attuned to the dancefloor, yet this brings out the best in George Bensons funky side. Thanks in part to the more rigid beat, Benson pares down his style to its rhythmic essentials, refusing to spray notes all over the place at random, and as a result, the record cooks and dances. His treatment of Vince Guaraldis Cast Your Fate to the Wind, hugely complemented by Joe Farrells wistfully prancing flute, is a mini-masterpiece in the use of space, of hitting exactly the right stabbing note right in the pocket. Again, Creed Taylor turns to a James Brown alumnus, David Matthews, for arrangements, and he discreetly and wisely stays out of Bad Georges way. Buy this one for Cast Your Fate, but there is plenty more to savor here (the CD also includes Hold On, Im Comin as a bonus). == Another sampler spotlighting his bluesy, funky material, this time taken from his brief period on Verve, when he recorded with the Sweet Inspirations and also played in a quintet with Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter. Its fine material, but not as strong as the Columbia or Prestige fare that preceded it. == This is the peak of George Bensons courtship of the mass market -- a superbly crafted and performed pop album with a large supporting cast -- and wouldnt you know that Quincy Jones, the master catalyst, is the producer. Qs regular team, including the prolific songwriter Rod Temperton and the brilliant engineer Bruce Swedien, is in control, and Bensons voice, caught beautifully in the rich, floating sound, had never before been put to such versatile use. On Moodys Mood, Benson really exercises his vocalese chops and proves that he is technically as fluid as just about any jazz vocalist, and he become a credible rival to Al Jarreau on the joyous title track. Bensons guitar now plays a subsidiary role -- only two of the ten tracks are instrumentals -- but Q has him play terrific fills behind the vocals and in the gaps, and the engineering gives his tone a variety of striking, new, full-sounding timbres. The instrumentals themselves are marvelous: Off Broadway is driving and danceable, and Ivan Lins Dinorah, Dinorah grows increasingly seductive with each play. Benson should have worked with Jones from this point on, but this would be their only album together.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:27:23 +0000
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