By: David Schultz

Best known as ½ of a wildly inventive duo, Marco Benevento is in the process of making quite a name for himself on his own. His storied New York residencies, marked by a proliferation of creative improvisational explorations, have given rise to mythic tales lauding his instrumental ingenuity. The allure of Benevento’s 2006 set of shows at Tonic and his recently completed slate at Sullivan Hall is the masterful interaction between the gifted keyboardist and his many guests. On Invisible Baby, his first solo studio release, Benevento keeps the guest list tight, limiting it to bassist extraordinaire Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green/Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey) and drummers Matt Chamberlain and Andrew Barr (The Slip ).

The piano tracks that pepper Invisible Baby are simply gorgeous with “You Must Be A Lion” and “Bus Ride” flowing wonderfully on the tide of Benevento’s cascading piano rolls. Benevento has a gift for creating lush landscapes of sound and knows how to build a song to a great crescendo, showing a remarkable aptitude for finding the perfect moment to let the music overflow. He’s mastered the art of creating a mood and establishing it quickly.

As Duo fans are aware, Benevento likes to play around with various gadgets. On “The Real Morning Party,” he blends together Chuck Berry’s “Rock And Roll Music” and his own “Soba” into a synthesized riff that sounds like it could have originated from an 80s-era video game (albeit a super-hip one). Speaking of classic electronics, Benevento saves most of his beeps and boops for “Atari,” using them to accentuate his jazzy keyboard riffs. In a different vein, “Ruby” finds Benevento in old-school, piano man mode, the opening and closing passages of the songs creating the same smoky images as Tom Waits.

Benevento is a massive talent and his band mates for this project are easily his equals. His piano work has a texture and context due the magnificent job of Mathis, Barr and Chamberlain providing the proper framework. On “If You Keep Asking Me,” the disc’s darkest track, Mathis and Chamberlain create a nourish aura which permits Benevento to give the song its edgy character. The drummers are a contrast in style: Barr’s percolating under his tracks while Chamberlain’s are slightly bolder and more pronounced.

Invisible Baby is going to be hard album for people to classify. If it’s looked at as jazz, it will be done so in the same vein as Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts music as the two share the same type of accessible, catchy melodies. For those who think with a broader mind, Benevento’s creative and challenging arrangements that mix elements of classical music, jazz and electronic rock aren’t that ideologically different from Thom Yorke and Radiohead. Either way, Invisible Baby is an album capable of reaching and touching a wide variety of listeners.

Labels: Marco Benevento