Keyboard Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 28) DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE A SELECTED MARCO BENEVENTO DISCOGRAPHY As a leader “They had an amazing interplay — very much in the style of jazz, but still very much their own thing.” TRIO FOR THE NEW MILLENIUM 2007 saw the release of Benevento’s criticallyacclaimed triple album, and his first as a leader, the aptly titled Live At Tonic. An eclectic mix of musical styles, sidemen, and repertoire, it also documents the keyboardist’s month-long residency at the fabled New York venue, which has since closed down. Just seven months after the release of Live At Tonic, Benevento returns with Invisible Baby, a multi-dimensional studio recording that presents the visionary keyboardist at the top of his creative game. “This trio record is the result of everything I’ve done — going to school, moving to New York, then getting caught up in this amazing duo. It’s a combination of the jazz world and the electronic, rocking duo world.” Benevento recorded Invisible Baby in two days on two different coasts while on tour supporting Live At Tonic. It was Chamberlain, whose music Benevento first heard while studying with pianist Brad Mehldau, who provided the impetus to record the trio in mid flight. “We had a day off in Seattle during a string of West Coast trio dates,” Benevento says. “Matt said ‘Let’s go into the studio and document the trio.’ So we went in and played my new tunes, and some of the ones that I had never recorded before. It’s like the accidental album — it basically recorded itself.” On Invisible Baby, Benevento experiments with the collision of electronic effects and acoustic sonorities. He sends pianos through movie projector amps and distortion pedals, bathing them in sonic beds of vintage Mellotron tape loops, banjo lines, and, of course, his circuit-modified toys. On the song “Atari,” Benevento actually scrolls through the variety of available waveforms on the Korg MicroSynth while playing an arepeggiated riff. The effect is almost vocoder-like. “I’m turning the knob as I’m playing,” he comments. “And the waveforms change underneath.” Invisible Baby is a modern instrumental rock record that flows like a live jazz album. It also manages to infuse a sense of tenderness and discovery that Benevento sees as an affirmation of love for his family and newly arrived daughter. “Having my own family made me realize what’s important. I’ve gotten the chance to build my nest at home, and it’s grounded me. It brought a whole new wave of inspiration. I was writing every day. ‘Are You The Favorite Person Of Anybody’ and ‘Ruby’ came out of that period, that new beginning.” COURAGE In early 2008, Benevento will mount a weekly Thursday night residency at New York’s Sullivan Hall. He’ll have his Baldwin grand piano moved to the venue for the run, along with his myriad effects and circuit-bent contraptions. Some of the recorded loops from Invisible Baby have been isolated in Pro Tools, and transferred to Benevento’s array of pedals, so that he can accurately reproduce the soundscape from the album. “I want my rig,” he says. “I want to have my piano, and my effects. I want the piano to feed back, just like it does on the record.” In addition, Benevento will mount a tour to support Invisible Baby and start planning the next Benevento/Russo Duo CD, due out sometime in 2009. But regardless of the band or configuration, Benevento remains steadfast in his determination to carve out his own path through the musical landscape. “Back at Berklee, I was reading the liner notes to Stan Getz’s album The Dolphin. And in them, he talks about the main things that make a musician who he is. One of those things was courage. I wrote that down, and used to look at it while I listened to records. It made me realize what was important — doing something unique, and being courageous about it. That was a watershed moment for me.” “This is a new rig that I just started using with [drummer] Matt Chamberlain, [bassist and guitarist] Reed Mathis, and [drummer] Andrew Barr,” says Benevento. “It’s piano through analog delay and distortion, pretty much, but on the album Invisible Baby we set it up through an old projector amp too.” He places two mics on the instrument live, and also chooses to stick a “$30 Dean Markley pickup in the piano and run it into the pedalboard, and then into a Fender SideKick, [which is] one of the best little solid state amps out there.” Live At Tonic (Ropeadope) Invisible Baby (Hyena) With The Benevento/Russo Duo: Darts (Benevento/Russo Duo) Best Reason to Buy the Sun (Ropeadope) Raw Horse (Pony Canyon) Circuit-bent toys done by Tom Stephenson www.rothmobot.com Boss DM3 Analog Delay Behringer Mixer Atari Punk (pedal) Circuit-bent Relaxation Machine with eyeballs Circuit-bent Chinese prayer box ART Tube Preamp Mid-Fi Electronics Glitch Computer Ugly Face (pedal) Circuit-bent Youthtronics True Bypass Switches Holy Grail Reverb Rat Distortion Pedal Fender Blender Zvex Lo-Fi Loop Junky 28 keyboard 03-2008 http://www.rothmobot.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.