The ever-evolving world of jazz sends one of its brightest young stars to Duke next week. Marco Benevento, innovative pianist and co-founder of the Benevento/Russo Duo, troops with his trio to the Duke Coffeehouse Wednesday.
Benevento, who honed his abilities at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, is bringing jazz piano into the 21st century. This is not your junior high music teacher’s keyboard: Benevento runs his rig through a variety of effects pedals, using a massive guitar amplifier to augment his sound. The result is an overwhelming but intricately crafted jazz-rock amalgamation. Jazz-rock, of course, is a simplification—everyone struggles to define Benevento’s music, including the musician himself.
“I tend to keep it brief and say instrumental jazz-rock, and then it’s experimental,” Benevento said. “It depends, though. Sometimes when there’s an audience that’s standing on their feet and it’s late, you can come into a room and think ‘This sounds like Talking Heads.’”
Benevento championed a variety of genres and styles on his terrific 2009 solo album Me Not Me. The record includes several covers of other groups, including My Morning Jacket’s acoustic ballad “Golden,” Leonard Cohen’s “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” and Led Zeppelin’s “Friends.” He said jazz musicians often record past classics along with original songs
“It’s what folks do in the jazz world,” he said, “For example, a pianist will cover a Beatles song and fill in [the record] with Duke Ellington.”
Benevento had long imagined making an album comprised of mainly covers, and he was able to record in studio while passing through Seattle on tour.
“It felt very natural to do it,” he said, “I’ve always felt that cover tunes are windows into the artist’s mind—what they’re listening to and what they like.”
2009 was also a year of collaboration for Benevento; he released a DVD of his five nights of sessions at New York City’s Sullivan Hall. Guests performers included Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and improvisational guitarist Kaki King.
“I told everybody, ‘Don’t worry, we’re just going to go up there and make up music for however many people were there,’” Benevento said. “It was a no-brainer for musicians to say ‘Sure!’”
For this three-man tour, however, Benevento gathered two close friends and stellar musicians, drummer Andrew Barr and bassist Dave Dreiwitz. That last name may sound familiar—Dreiwitz is also a member of Ween, the legendary indie-rock group started by two “brothers,” Gene and Dean Ween.
Driewitz said he first got to know Marco through their mutual love for Led Zeppelin.
“We met through Joe Russo because we all play in the Zeppelin cover band, Bustle in Your Hedgerow,” Driewitz said. “I told them that I love Zeppelin and I would play with those guys if they need a bass player.”
Since then, Driewitz has collaborated with Benevento on several improvisational projects, and he first played in the trio in the fall of 2009. Coming from the more straightforward rock of Ween, Dreiwitz had to get used to the peculiarities of Benevento’s performance style.
“When you’re playing rock music in a band with vocals, it’s really about the vocals,” Drieiwitz said. “When you’re playing instrumental music, there’s a lot more focus on each individual instrument.”
Dreiwitz admits, though, that moonlighting with Benevento has its advantages.
“If you hit a wrong note, you might get a smile from Marco,” he said. “With Ween, you might get a frown.”
The Marco Benevento Trio promises to deliver mainly smiles at the Coffeehouse. On his first trip to North Carolina with the trio, Benevento plans to have a good time.
“I’m really excited about it: I love playing for ‘sponges,’ which is what I call you college students,” he said. “If anybody knows of a place where they want us to play after, like in somebody’s garage, we’re down.”
The Marco Benevento Trio will perform at the Duke Coffeehouse on Wednesday, Feb. 10. The performance is free for Duke students and $10 for others.
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