Bad Benson - George Benson

Mar

17

Bad Benson - George Benson

≡ Category: 1970s, Hard Bop, Jazz Funk, Recommended, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

I’m almost embarrassed to recommend Bad Benson. Goodness knows it won’t change your life. But still.

Bad Benson is one of a string of strong mid-70s recordings George Benson made with the CTI label. He had been moving away from the bebop and organ trios that characterized his early career and in a more R&B oriented direction for several years. This was the last real jazz date he recorded before crossing over to the pop charts with Breezin’ and his cover of Leon Russell’s This Masquerade the following year.

As usual for CTI, the production is slick, Don Sebesky’s charts are tasty if mainstream in style, the overqualified session players (Steve Gadd, Ron Carter, Kenny Barron) do their job, but it is really Benson’s guitar playing that puts this one over the top. You kind of expect Benson’s playing to be precise and smooth, but he is often actually sounds inspired here.

This is the kind of music that can fade into the background and then you’re shocked into actually listening when Benson pulls off a particularly tricky solo.

Legacy’s remastered CD version makes Bad Benson even more worthwhile, considering it adds 3 bonus tracks — not the usual alternate tracks, but 3 completely new tracks from the vaults, a syncopated version of Take the A Train, the funk workout Serbian Blue (which has a pretty stellar Benson solo), and a short solo piece called “From Now On.”