George Benson

[Reg]

I've always dug Benson. Last week at one of my gigs I covered a few guitar player tunes... Some Wes which is always cool... But I brought charts for two Benson tunes...My Latin Brother and Plum, way to much fun, always gets audiences charged up. You do need to have pretty good technique and make your solos sound like long melodies... Reg

[jnbrown]

I first heard GB when I was in high school around 1975. His Breezin album had just come out and was very popular with my class mates. I don't think anybody at the time realized that the music was jazz based or how good he was already at playing guitar, they just liked the music. I also listened to many other types of music including Al Dimeola, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton. At the time I thought Al Dimeola was the greatest guitar player ever and nobody could touch him. I even saw him in concert and he was awesome. One day I was at my older brothers house and he liked jazz and had put on some MJQ. I thought it was so good and still do. Over the years I listened to more jazz and came to like the Crusaders, Joe Pass and some local jazz musicians. Since I recently started to get serious about jazz guitar I discovered a whole what I call underworld of players that I recently discovered including Emily Remler, Ed Bickert, etc. I doubt even most jazz fans don't know who they where. One thing never changed I always liked to listen to GB. I could listen to Breezin and unlimited number of times and probably find something new in it each time. It certainly wasn't even close to his best performance from a jazz perspective and would prefer to listen his live performances on Youtube. It took me a long to realize this but GB played tunes written by others and rarely wrote anything himself. When he came out with Breezin album at the time I assumed he wrote all the songs on it and it wan't until a few years ago I discovered that Affirmation was written by Jose Feliciano. One day my wife is playing this GB song called the Ghetto, well I never heard of that before and thought he must have written it, wrong. GB had a way of taking tunes were good but never made it and turned them into something great. I never liked singing with jazz and GB is no exception. Sure he has a good voice, not the greatest, and tends to be used more for pop rather than jazz. Personally I would rather hear him rip on the guitar which he does like nobody else. He says and I believe it that being singer was a great advantage to his guitar playing. I have watched some workshop videos on Youtube where GB talks about some of his history and does a lot of solo playing but there is not much there in terms of learning of how to play the way he does in terms of technique and theory. He says himself he not so good at teaching and learns from others. There have been many discussions about GB picking technique here and it is still somewhat of a mystery. There must be a tremendous treasure chest of knowledge about playing jazz guitar that GB has in his head. He is now 70 and I hope someday all that knowledge can be put into a book or video or whatever. I am sure he has been busy his whole life doing recording and concert tours and his fans for the most part are probably not hard core jazz guitarists. I am not saying GB is the end all of jazz guitarists and life would be pretty boring if he was, but he has had a tremendous influence and how I think of jazz guitar and his playing is a benchmark.

[rrbasic]

I always wish that George wouldn't sing.

[DRS]

I always wish that George wouldn't sing.

Why not, he's a wonderful singer. In an interview a few years ago, Pat Metheny was asked about George Benson not playing a lot of guitar anymore. Pat said that if he could sing like George, he wouldn't be playing much guitar either.

[jnbrown]

Since I had never seen George Benson in person I decided to check on if there was a concert coming up nearby.
I found one in Los Angeles, tribute to Nat Cole.
he has a new album called Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole in which he attempts to sound like Nat Cole and the album is entirely singing. I can't blame him if this is what he wants to do, but I think it sounds pretty bad and needless to say I won't be going to the concert. The album gets high reviews so obviously a lot of people want to hear George sing like this.

[bobby d]

I discovered Benson a little before the Breezin' album came out, so I was surprised to suddenly hear him sing. I prefer listening to his fantastic guitar virtuosity even though he sings very well. He's one of the top players in my book if not the very best.

[docbop]

Everyone complains about George singing, but that is what George says he prefers to do. George started as a singer and as a teen had a regional hit record, guitar wasn't his thing. From the history of Benson I've read he was very poor guitar player and only knew a few tunes on guitar and could only solo on really simple stuff, but he had amazing ears and was dedicated. McDuff or one of the Jazz organ players of the day was going out of town the next day and lost his guitar player. Someone said this guy Benson is new in town call him. Benson got the gig and next night was on stage as a Jazz guitarist. The story goes Benson was struggling so the organist adjusted the material to what Benson could handle and figured its only a week long gig. Well Benson practiced day and night and every night on the gig you could hear major improvement. So the organist ended up keeping Benson and Benson playing matured fast because he's got big ears.

I'm like the rest of you I saw him a few times in the early days and wish he would do more small group instrumental recording.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I always assumed George realized he'd make more money singing.

[cosmic gumbo]

I was listening to George when he had become the next Wes. When I first heard George sing on the radio, I thought it was Stevie Wonder. How can any of that be a bad thing.

[djangoles]

His version of All Of Me is fun romp

[Solo Flight]

I remember hearing his version of Take Five on the radio and getting the album (Bad Benson) - it was probably my first jazz guitar album. That would have been early-mid 70's? Then when I saw him at Jones Beach in NY in the mid 80s, there were a bunch of people seated nearby who were all reminiscing over his pre-Breezin' CTI days. Miles was at that same concert - pretty funky and pretty fun best I can recall. I do have a vision of him holding up signs to introduce the band as he probably had no voice at all by that point.

[ESCC]

My wife who does not care for jazz, does like George Benson and primarily because of his vocals and pop melodies. She enjoys his concerts too, we've been to 3. Straight-up jazz, well . . . not so much.

[Greentone]

Benson is an enduring talent. Like Cole, he crossed over with his singing...and made a fortune. Whatever. Privately, Cole could play like Art Tatum. Les Paul once told me a story about showing up at a house and hearing Tatum playing in the next room. When he entered the room, there was Nat Cole playing piano. Benson is the same way. He can nail Montgomery, Green, even Chet Atkins. The money, however, is in singing. He sure has spent as much as Kenny Rogers, though, on plastic surgery.

[UpstreamJazz]

One of my favorite jazz musicians and composers, regardless of whether he plays guitar or performs vocally.

That said, I do have a relatively strong bias toward his guitar-driven work.

"Bad Benson" is just one of his many absolute classics that I love from when he played guitar. From a listening perspective, "My Latin Brother" and "Serbian Blue" (on the reissue) are just two examples from this record of pure jazz guitar bliss, at least for me.

An extremely rare talent to find someone who does two completely different things (guitar/vocals) and is a virtuoso at both.

[targuit]

I've seen George Benson perform live just once - in the early Seventies at the Jazz Workshop / Paul's Mall in Boston. I sat down at a front table about six feet away from George. For me it was a pretty transcendent experience, as I was exploring jazz at that time. He was playing with a pianist, bassist, and drums. Earl Klugh was a guest player that evening on a few tunes. George smiled through every song, playing a more hard core jazz than on his records at the time. He sang a tune or two as well. The playing was great. I was too bashful to approach him between sets, but he seemed like a cool guy. I wrote about this night on another thread and Googled it which confirmed the date and even the club's owner commenting about how George got paid about $1, 250 for a few nights, while a year or two later he was nailing $20K a night. The date was Feb. 27, 1973. If you Google for GB and the Jazz Workshop, you can find a few links including some recordings of the date as well as a set list and articles about the Clubs and Benson.

The two clubs, side by side on the now infamous Boylston St. in Boston, are long shuttered up. They were just incredible venues for top jazz acts in an intimate club setting. Miss 'em terribly.

[Nabil B]

About his lack of teaching skills, I think it can be explained by the fact that he is a "natural" and didn't have to struggle as much as the majority of people to play jazz. The struggling is really what makes you a good teacher later down the road, because it forces you to understand the process of learning and find ways around the many obstacles. George can just show you what he does but he can't teach it, and really it's not his fault.

As for the singing : one of his spiritual sons, Norman Brown, took the same path. His first album is all guitar, then he slowly added more and more singing and frankly most of the time it's disappointing. But that's what gets him some air play on the radio and that's what will sell. Still, to people who are passionate about jazz and guitar, it's kind of a waste because we'd rather hear such a gifted guitarist play some great jazz tunes instead of hearing him sing on some cheesy rnb/neosoul/whatchamacallit song.

I feel the same way about George and that's why I'll never go see him live, I know that his shows are not geared towards the jazz aficionados and from a financial perspective it completely makes sense. Still I wish he would come up with a new album of pure bebop guitar, because we all know how much he excels in that discipline.

[mja]

im tired of hearing this. the man is an awesome guitarist/awesome singer and bandleader

he has recorded enough instrumental jazz to keep people happy surely? only recently guitar man came out which is all instrumental and some of the best jazz guitar you'll ever hear, and the nat king tribute is really enjoyable to listen to whith some tasty solos and not to mention fantastic singing.

i think its the snob jazz purist who will always criticise these things

[AmundLauritzen]

I don't listen to his pop tunes because it's not my cup of tea, but if I had a voice like that I'd take advantage of it. Those who criticise Benson better imagine themselves in his shoes. You have a voice like that, you're not going to let it go to waste.
Besides, who knows what Benson does in his spare time? He could be in the woodshed or jamming bebop with friends for all we know.

Of course I'd like him to produce more bebop records, but he's a human being with his own desires in life and not our personal bebop jukebox.
I think if an artist never has the desire to evolve from his roots, one can question why they're into music in the first place. Of course you can apply that kind of thinking to his pop era, which he has been devoting most of his time to, but even in the formulaic pop songs you see some kind of evolution from album to album. Even if that's just collaborations with other musicians who add a fresh touch to it.

Look at the Benson legacy, the mark he left on the guitar world. Many guitarists style are soaked in Bensonisms: Andreas Oberg, Torsten Goods, Bireli Lagrene, Mike Reinhardt and many more. That in itself speaks volumes. Lets be grateful for the bebop jazz that benson has put out there and if a new bop record comes out, that's great.

I can see how a musician wants to try different things. I do that myself. I practice bebop and jazz manouche in the day, but in the evening I take out my nylon string guitar and play fingerstyle folk tunes. Just because it gives me a different spectrum of enjoyment than what jazz does. One day, I just simply felt like doing it. There was no conscious decision. I just grabbed the guitar and started playing.
I think if anyone does the same thing over and over and over again for years, decades, they will eventually grow SICK of it. There has to be some kind of branching out, be it in the primary style one plays, or to another style of music entirely.

My 2 cents.

[Nabil B]

I think my message came out harsher than I wanted. I really like George Benson, even if I don't really care for his pop songs (I do find some of them nice though) but what I wanted to convey was my frustration as a bebop lover who wants to hear him play in this style. That doesn't mean that I don't respect him, quite the contrary actually. His skills, career and stage presence are simply amazing. And I'm far from being a jazz snob, as I do enjoy some smooth jazz once in a while (like music from the aforementioned Norman Brown or some of the tracks on the Collaboration album from George Benson and Earl Klugh).

[r_cc_c]

I guess you need to tape up the F-holes to get this sound. hahaha

Looks like it is a regular Hot Rod Deluxe (or Deville), not his signature.

[r_cc_c]

I think it is "George Benson Absolutely Live".

[Robertkoa]

Love the Soul on this and the Vibrato -Benson is amazing .

Imagine playing this expressively and perfectly 'live '.......

Way before youtube/internet..Benson was the only Jazz Guitarist ( maybe a few Fusion Guitarists) that I ever bought an album of ... it was the R&B , Blues and Soul aspect of his Playing - he had/has a Raw feel to his Playing ...few Jazzers have .

[BigMikeinNJ]

?

[Doctor Jeff]

I wonder how George's voice is doing after the London kerfuffle last year (lost his voice--some audience members very unhappy)?

All I have found is this--LOUSY recording but suggests he's back in the groove.

[BigMikeinNJ]

I saw George on May 25 2017 here in Chicago and met him after show. His voice was very strong and sure. BUT touring with Kenny G opening means you have to wait some time to do your bit. Kenny G ran from 8pm until 9:40. After show George was obviously tired. Hell he did 90 minutes... Now I was 70 when I saw him but doggone man I was really bushed sitting there on my ass that late. I can't imagine touring and playing at 76 like he does.

As for the "kerfuffle" He had a little heart issue and had a pacemaker put in. He's cut his touring WAY DOWN and rightfully so. You'll see a lot less of the guy - he's doing his George Benson Institute thing as a way to leave a little legacy.