What album turned G. Benson over to the dark side?

[bigtiny]

George Benson can kiss my ass! I hate him and his music.

Well now. Tell us how you really feel.

Sorry, but his music is like Top 40 Radio minus the vocals. He might have been able to swing at one time, but he gets my vote for biggest sellout in jazz history.

Being a sellout would imply that he's doing it only for the money. History says otherwise.

So he's not doing it for the money? I think you're way off base here, Jim. Everything he does is motivated by money. It has to be. Listen to his music. It sucks!

I do things that are motivated by money, too. Does that mean I'm a sellout?

You do what you can do to make a living; he found something he was good at and could make money at and he stuck with it and made a whole bunch of bread. Good for him. It's obvious from bootlegs that I've heard and from the stories of people in this thread that he can still burn on guitar in a jazz setting. Does that mean he is required to do so by some strange obligation to jazz / guitar nerds? And if he doesn't he sucks?

The music business is extremely tough. I applaud anyone who actually has talent and musicianship for making it, however they can. Is Larry Goldings selling out because he's touring and recording with James Taylor?

Look....if you make your living at something, then you're doing it for the money. Benson has stated many times that he started out singing doo-wop on streetcorners in Pittsburgh and always saw himself as a vocalist. I'm not a big fan of what he does these days (or for many days in fact) but I'll tell you what, any time he wants to he is able to distinguish himself as one of the greatest straight ahead jazz guitarists in the world. If you don't believe me, ask any jazz guitarist. Having said that, if he can make millions by playing music that HE enjoys (and apparently millions of others do too) then what's the problem? It's simple, if you don't like it, don't listen to it.

I saw Benson live many years ago, touring in support of the 'Breezin' album. The tunes were all tunes from the album, so it wasn't a bad ass burning jazz concert. However, the band was great and the playing and presentation were impeccable. You know, I don't fire up an 'Original Dixieland Jazz Band' album everyday, but if I saw them, and they presented their music at their usual standard, who am I to complain???

bigtiny

[AllenLowe]

well, Benson can talk all he want, but he's lying if he says he plays what he plays for anything but money - and I can't say that I blame him; I just wish he was honest about it -

Edited July 11, 2008 by AllenLowe

[clifford_thornton]

And to carry your argument one step further, would you say all that to Ornette Coleman too? Are artists like him just disrespectful, inconsiderate, arrogant snobs who kick their audience in the you know where with their music because they do THEIR thing and do not oblige to the public's whims?

Ornette paid his dues in rock and roll and "walked the bar" for the people. I think he believes that his music is not so erudite as to be appreciable by a vast number of people.

[bluemonk]

i don't think "he sucks" necessarily means you're not listening hard enough. what it does suggest to me is that you think you have the right to judge him. "he sucks" isn't just an opinion, it's more like a final judgment. now don't get me wrong, i've said the very same thing about many people (stevie nicks, kid rock, kenny g,....), and i'll probably do it again in the future. what i try to say instead when i'm using my brain is "i don't like/appreciate their music" or "this stuff doesn't move me, or speak to me, etc." as jim pointed out, passing judgment on an artist that other people like is being disrespectful to an audience that just doesn't deserve it. it's one of the reasons why a lot of people think we're snobs, exerting more effort into putting other people's music down than we do in supporting the music we love. right or wrong, that's the reputation we've earned by letting other people know their music "sucks." that's just my two cents.

oh, and if you must pick someone to say "he sucks," then say "mark sucks."

take it from me, his friend. he does, and he knows it too.

If you've said the same thing yourself, then why the hell are you telling me what I should say and should not say? Sounds like you need to follow your own advise.

Edited July 12, 2008 by bluemonk

[Big Beat Steve]

Take it easy, Bluemonk. There is no big deal about statements to the effect that this or that musician "sucks" in what he does. No need to go overboard with PC here. It IS just a statement of opinion that everybody ought to be entitled as long as there still is the liberty of voicing one's opinion. After all, nobody is forced to agree with statements of opinion like that.

IMHO it all boils down to this: Artists like Benson at one point in their career have decided to leave jazz (was Benson EVER "hardcore" jazz, BTW? The "core" of jazz - yes, but "hardcore"? ) for greener pastures of pop or easy listening music (some may call it R&B but wouldn't this be stretching things a bit?). All very well and all quite acceptable but pretend it is something it isn't? Not Benson's fault, but in the end it amounts to the same. Consider him a pop or easy listening (or "soft R&B") artist but it just ain't jazz anymore from a certain point. If for some reason his pop albums were to be forced on jazz audiences (via radio or otherwise) then I'd understand those who came to listen to jazz just say he "sucks" jazzwise. (Note: JAZZWISE, NOT pop-wise )

Like I said earlier in this thread, I've never been touched by Benson's "contemporary" music blaring from jazz radio shows back in the 80s, evidently made after after he had made the transition. It might be described as "lush" (but not in the better sense of the word) - and, yes, it DID keep me from exploring his jazz works (there being so much other jazz music to explore where you could not possibly go wrong, the risks of ending up with a pop-slanted bummer in those pre-internet, pre-forum days just were waaaaay too big for me. And I guess I wasn't the only one ...)

And to carry your argument one step further, would you say all that to Ornette Coleman too? Are artists like him just disrespectful, inconsiderate, arrogant snobs who kick their audience in the you know where with their music because they do THEIR thing and do not oblige to the public's whims?

Ornette paid his dues in rock and roll and "walked the bar" for the people. I think he believes that his music is not so erudite as to be appreciable by a vast number of people.

So did others (e.g. Trane with Earl Bostic and Johnny Hodges, not to mentin Sun Ra or Clifford Brown), yet that's a far, far cry from what came afterwards in their musical careers and is not necessarily linked.

What I find strange in all this is that with more recent jazz artists it all of a sudden it is considered quite quite legitimate even by JAZZ criteria to go into pop (even if it was only for the money - let's nt make any false pretenses) whereas TO THIS VERY DAY jazz artists from earlier days see part of their output denigrated for being "R&B" although at that time (40s/50s, etc.) R&B certainly was far closer to the mainstream of jazz than black pop (so-called R&B) was/is in much more recent decades. Pretty strange, ain't it?

Edited July 12, 2008 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

What I find strange in all this is that with more recent jazz artists it all of a sudden it is considered quite quite legitimate even by JAZZ criteria to go into pop (even if it was only for the money - let's nt make any false pretenses) whereas TO THIS VERY DAY jazz artists from earlier days see part of their output denigrated for being "R&B" although at that time (40s/50s, etc.) R&B certainly was far closer to the mainstream of jazz than black pop (so-called R&B) was/is in much more recent decades. Pretty strange, ain't it?

You've asked this question before in this thread, but I couldn't find it just now when I looked. I think it's an interesting question. Are double standards at work in some way? And why? And what's the effect?

Who are you talking about from the 40s/50s, Steve?

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

MG, you're right - I did ask that question before (yesterday in reply to a post by Jim Alfredson, but I deleted my remark soon afterwards as I figured it was pointless at that point of the debate but now, and in view of recent posts that followed...).

Some of those artists that come to my mind are Willis Jackson's EARLY recordings (as opposed to his later work), Louis Jordan's 50s recordings for Aladdin and Mercury or Cootie Williams' late 50s small band that he toured and recorded with.

I admit I cannot really give the exact sources of recent statements from jazz circles that seem to put down the R&B output of jazzmen from that era but those statements did occur - very much to my surprise, as I figured the listeners' and critics' attitude from the 50s when such putdowns were even more frequent would definitely be a thing of the past. But there still seems to be an invisible barrier between 40s/50s jazz and 40s/50s R&B (or "black pop") in the minds of quite a few.

And yet back then R&B and mainstream jazz and even bebop were not that far away from each other IMHO (as proven not only by the above but also artists by such as Gene Ammons and Leo Parker or Tom Archia) and "crossover" and cross-polliation were frequent.

Again, nothing wrong with jazz artists going pop or easy listening at all if they find this is the road they want to follow but then their output not only ought to be judged by pop or easy listening standards but also ought to be categorized as such. Otherwise you'll have the next "Is smooth jazz actually jazz?" debate coming up and we'll be back to the beginning.

BTW, I'm writing this as a local "jazz festival" is about to open here that openly includes pop acts in its festival roster (on what grounds, I wonder? It must be pretty hip to sail under the jazz flag even despite the fact that the commercial non-potential of jazz is relentlessly evoked everywhere )

[JSngry]

Seems to me that Benson can pretty much play what he feels like whenever he feels like it, play it well, enjoy it, & not lose any sleep over any of it.

Seems to me that that's a damn fine musician & a confident, secure man.

Not sure I see any real "problem" there.

[JSngry]

There's really no comparison to 50s R&B work & the jazz-pop/pop-jazz that Benson & others started making in the 70s. The 50s stuff was (mostly) limited in musical & lyrical language. Now, with those limitations often came great power, but musically, strictly speaking, if you were a "learned" musician (or an aspiring one), the idiom would only accommodate you up to a relatively likited point.

Not so the later stuff. The level of musical sophistication there is quantum levels higher, able to accommodate darn near any harmonic, melodic, or rhythmic vocabulary. Of course, some temperament of same is going to occur, but a Benson album like Breezin' is to "The Hucklebuck" like a Waldorf salad is to the back room of a grocery store.

Of course, when you get into more "pure" pop, that flexibility goes away, but for some people, players and listeners alike, that's just not too much of a problem, since things are what they are, and the only cause for alarm is if you expect them not to be. And really, whose fault would that be?

Even at that, though, something like "Turn Your Love Around" as a record, not a song or a performance, but a record, has infinitely more "sophistication" to it that any R&B record of the 50s in terms of musical production values and such. Doesn't make it any better music, far from it, but it's not something that you could get a singer and a band in a small studio & knock out in a hour either. There's some highly specific & developed skills involved in all corners. So no need to "hide" unless you're intrinsically ashamed of making a good pop/dance record, in which case, you probably shouldn't be doing it, at least not under your own name...

[JSngry]

An oh, BTW - "real" jazz, although not entirely dead yet, soon will be. It was of a time, place, and people that have evolved and/or died off due to natural societal evolution.

So that smokin' 25 year old bebop altoist you hear in Finland or someplace is going to "role playing" at least as much as Benson playing "On Broadway"

Probably even more so.

[AllenLowe]

sorry, I don't begrudge him his money, but the music is all crap - and annoyingly calculated crap at that -

[JSngry]

You left out "a very real & immediate threat to civilized people across the world".

[JSngry]

Besides, what's all this "calculated" bullshit anyways. Damn near all music is "calculated" in some way or another. It doesn't just happen all by itself.

And I'll say it one more time - if it were really all that easy to make a successful (I'll even say good, because with the exception of "Give Me the Night", I've enjoyed Benson's hits as long as I didn't have to hear them 15-20 times a day, and since I've not listened to the radio like that since about 197-whatever, that has not been an issue) pop/dance/whatever record, then everybody would have done it by now, and everybody haven't.

Face it -some people just relate better to "the masses" than others. No reason to envy them, but no reason to denigrate it either. It's just the way shit happens, always has been. Sure sometimes/often it's manufactured, but some folks really do just...get along well with almost everybody without even trying. No sense getting all spazzed out about it. Be who you are, let them be who they are, and enjoy what you got while you still got it, because the time will come when you don't.

[AndrewHill]

And I'll say it one more time - if it were really all that easy to make a successful (I'll even say good, because with the exception of "Give Me the Night", I've enjoyed Benson's hits as long as I didn't have to hear them 15-20 times a day, and since I've not listened to the radio like that since about 197-whatever, that has not been an issue) pop/dance/whatever record, then everybody would have done it by now, and everybody haven't.

And all this time I thought 'Give Me the Night' was by The Commodores . I must've heard that song at least twice a day every day back in 1980-1, and it kinda grew on me (I was 10 at the time in Florida) having no idea who George Benson was. I also remember hearing Breezin' on the radio too, when I was a little bit younger.

Although I own none of his leader dates, and therefore will not participate in this poll, I will say that I enjoy his sideman contributions quite a bit, especially on Taru, Miles in the Sky and Reach Out (if memory serves me correctly) and will leave it at that -_-

Edited July 12, 2008 by Holy Ghost

[paul secor]

There's really no comparison to 50s R&B work & the jazz-pop/pop-jazz that Benson & others started making in the 70s. The 50s stuff was (mostly) limited in musical & lyrical language. Now, with those limitations often came great power, but musically, strictly speaking, if you were a "learned" musician (or an aspiring one), the idiom would only accommodate you up to a relatively likited point.

Not so the later stuff. The level of musical sophistication there is quantum levels higher, able to accommodate darn near any harmonic, melodic, or rhythmic vocabulary. Of course, some temperament of same is going to occur, but a Benson album like Breezin' is to "The Hucklebuck" like a Waldorf salad is to the back room of a grocery store.

Of course, when you get into more "pure" pop, that flexibility goes away, but for some people, players and listeners alike, that's just not too much of a problem, since things are what they are, and the only cause for alarm is if you expect them not to be. And really, whose fault would that be?

Even at that, though, something like "Turn Your Love Around" as a record, not a song or a performance, but a record, has infinitely more "sophistication" to it that any R&B record of the 50s in terms of musical production values and such. Doesn't make it any better music, far from it, but it's not something that you could get a singer and a band in a small studio & knock out in a hour either. There's some highly specific & developed skills involved in all corners. So no need to "hide" unless you're intrinsically ashamed of making a good pop/dance record, in which case, you probably shouldn't be doing it, at least not under your own name...

????? So what are you saying? Perhaps I'm just not " learned" or "sophisticated" enough to understand.

Edited July 12, 2008 by paul secor

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's really no comparison to 50s R&B work & the jazz-pop/pop-jazz that Benson & others started making in the 70s. The 50s stuff was (mostly) limited in musical & lyrical language. Now, with those limitations often came great power, but musically, strictly speaking, if you were a "learned" musician (or an aspiring one), the idiom would only accommodate you up to a relatively likited point.

Not so the later stuff. The level of musical sophistication there is quantum levels higher, able to accommodate darn near any harmonic, melodic, or rhythmic vocabulary. Of course, some temperament of same is going to occur, but a Benson album like Breezin' is to "The Hucklebuck" like a Waldorf salad is to the back room of a grocery store.

Of course, when you get into more "pure" pop, that flexibility goes away, but for some people, players and listeners alike, that's just not too much of a problem, since things are what they are, and the only cause for alarm is if you expect them not to be. And really, whose fault would that be?

Even at that, though, something like "Turn Your Love Around" as a record, not a song or a performance, but a record, has infinitely more "sophistication" to it that any R&B record of the 50s in terms of musical production values and such. Doesn't make it any better music, far from it, but it's not something that you could get a singer and a band in a small studio & knock out in a hour either. There's some highly specific & developed skills involved in all corners. So no need to "hide" unless you're intrinsically ashamed of making a good pop/dance record, in which case, you probably shouldn't be doing it, at least not under your own name...

????? So what are you saying? Perhaps I'm just not " learned" or "sophisticated" enough to understand.

Unusually, Jim hasn't been as clear as he usually is. I think he means that, in the early R&B days, the musical language was limited and therefore someone who was capable of more was letting himself down more clearly than would be the case now. So, I guess, Jim means that double standards aren't operating.

Of course, it does depend on what you're trying to get to. And if what you're trying to get to is the message of the honking R&B horns - and you happen to be Gator Tail - then doing it isn't letting yourself down. And though Gator later moved away from that stuff (a bit) and said something like "well you can lie on the floor with your foot in the bell of your sax but in the end, what are you playing for people who want to buy an album?" (can't be asked to look up the reference) I don't read that as denigrating what he was doing earlier because a) he got to be thirty and that makes a difference, b) things changed and it became an LP market and c) the public went off that kind of stuff in about 1954, so Gator had a hard time in the late fifties and it wasn't until he moved more firmly over to the jazz side that he started doing good business.

And I know not what to learn from all that

MG

[Joe G]

Burnin' guitar, tight band, satisfying pop tune (provided you haven't heard it too many times). And one other thing: a dignified presence in the leader, dig?

I can see why people are frustrated with Benson. When someone can play that goddam well (I wish I had even half his right hand ability), you'd like the entire artistic package to be at that level, all the time. We (the musicians in my circle) might have liked it if he had jumped on the organ revival/groove music/jamband wagon when that started up in the 90's. But those were, and are, his choices to make, and make them he has. No, I don't think he's lost any sleep over it.

Larry made a good point a while back about self-respect.

[Joe G]

I just watched that clip again. Let me add proper emphasis: BURNIN' guitar.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yes, decent tune, tight band, totally burnin' guitar, but to what avail? For me, he's playing his ass off but there's no impact to it.

I've got the "Breezin'" LP, from which that tune comes, and it has always seemed to me that the one track with real impact was "This masquerade".

There's more to this than playing.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

There's really no comparison to 50s R&B work & the jazz-pop/pop-jazz that Benson & others started making in the 70s. The 50s stuff was (mostly) limited in musical & lyrical language.

Even at that, though, something like "Turn Your Love Around" as a record, not a song or a performance, but a record, has infinitely more "sophistication" to it that any R&B record of the 50s in terms of musical production values and such. Doesn't make it any better music, far from it, but it's not something that you could get a singer and a band in a small studio & knock out in a hour either. There's some highly specific & developed skills involved in all corners.

Ha, now that's funny ...

Just been tinkering in my workshop for a while refurbishing some parts for my old cars with the radio playing in the background... And guess what just came on as a sort of commemoration of a tour George Benson seems to have done here some time ago (can't say I regret missing it)?

"Turn Your Love Around"!

Holy Mackeral! Sometimes it takes forced exposure like that to bring certain impressions back into mind. If this is all that's the result of those "developed skills" and "sophistication" of studio productions that occurred way after the 50s then "sophistication" in this musical genre just equals nothing but overproduction. Not much progress I can see there unless you want sophistication for sophistication's sake without any regard for honest, personal substance. Fine musical production values, that! Any 50s Johnny Ace or Jesse Belvin tune (both vocal and instrumental-wise) has more handmade, down-to-earth, straightforward musical qualitites than this interchangeable Commodores soundalike! But maybe turning out something with the more simplistic equipment of the 50s that despite these alleged limitations in musical craftsmanship has stood the test of time has become a lost art ever since production technicalities engineered by some whiz kids have won out in the studios??

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's really no comparison to 50s R&B work & the jazz-pop/pop-jazz that Benson & others started making in the 70s. The 50s stuff was (mostly) limited in musical & lyrical language.

Even at that, though, something like "Turn Your Love Around" as a record, not a song or a performance, but a record, has infinitely more "sophistication" to it that any R&B record of the 50s in terms of musical production values and such. Doesn't make it any better music, far from it, but it's not something that you could get a singer and a band in a small studio & knock out in a hour either. There's some highly specific & developed skills involved in all corners.

Ha, now that's funny ...

Just been tinkering in my workshop for a while refurbishing some parts for my old cars with the radio playing in the background... And guess what just came on as a sort of commemoration of a tour George Benson seems to have done here some time ago (can't say I regret missing it)?

"Turn Your Love Around"!

Holy Mackeral! Sometimes it takes forced exposure like that to bring certain impressions back into mind. If this is all that's the result of those "developed skills" and "sophistication" of studio productions that occurred way after the 50s then "sophistication" in this musical genre just equals nothing but overproduction. Not much progress I can see there unless you want sophistication for sophistication's sake without any regard for honest, personal substance. Fine musical production values, that! Any 50s Johnny Ace or Jesse Belvin tune (both vocal and instrumental-wise) has more handmade, down-to-earth, straightforward musical qualitites than this interchangeable Commodores soundalike! But maybe turning out something with the more simplistic equipment of the 50s that despite these alleged limitations in musical craftsmanship has stood the test of time has become a lost art ever since production technicalities engineered by some whiz kids have won out in the studios??

You know I agree with you Steve, but you're putting too much on this.

More than any other kind of music, black pop music reflects changes in its society. The people at whom that music was aimed - and to a very large extent the people who created that music - weren't the same kind of people in the late seventies as in the late forties and early fifties. Pretty well everyone knows roughly what was going on in black society in the interim. So it's clear that the music's GOT to be very different. Yes, and that may (well, does) mean over-produced, because generally improved living standards and better quality housing and etc out in the suburbs actually led people to that kind of demand. And it's no good saying something like, "I wish they'd all stayed in the ghetto and continued to make proper R&B records".

MG

[marcello]

George Benson aint afraid of McCoy Tyner:

McCoy

McCoy#2

George Benson aint afraid of Davis Budway (Dave is from pittsburg too):

David Budway

George Benson aint afraid of John McLaughlin:

John McLaughlin

George Benson aint afraid of Joey DeFrancesco:

Joey D

[AllenLowe]

crap, crap, all crap.

dishonest crap. calculated crap. boring crap. annoying crap. stupid crap. crappy crap.

but, to borrow from another recent thread, this is just my opinion. And who would take the opinion of a guy who is out-matured by a 4 year old?

[AllenLowe]

just watched the Benson-McLaughlin clip; give me a break, awful stuff by Benson, this proves if you don't use it you lose it - Benson plays cliches interspersed with rapid nothingness. Even his sound has become a solid-state mass of pretty mush.

You cannot go home again, especially after you've made a lot of money playing crap - and don;t compare this to early r&b; Benson cannot touch that music for touch and feeling, time sense, rhythm, or soul. His is the soul of Scarsdale -

Edited July 12, 2008 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

just watched the Benson-McLaughlin clip; give me a break, awful stuff by Benson, this proves if you don't use it you lose it - Benson plays cliches interspersed with rapid nothingness. Even his sound has become a solid-state mass of pretty mush.

You cannot go home again, especially after you've made a lot of money playing crap - and don;t compare this to early r&b; Benson cannot touch that music for touch and feeling, time sense, rhythm, or soul. His is the soul of Scarsdale -

I think I agree with you, but Scarsdale sounds like an almost derelict Yorkshire mining village. Please explain that bit.

MG