Benny Green - Benny's Crib (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Benny Green’s notes on his upcoming album, Benny’s Crib: My primary instrument will always be the piano, but as a child of the 1970s, I grew up in an era in which the sound of an electric piano was more prevalent in the popular music of the day than was the acoustic instrument. The sound of the Fender Rhodes and the Wurlitzer were heard regularly on the radio and records played at parties while I a kid.

I’ve long wanted to integrate the Rhodes into my musical palette as a bandleader and my 2018 Sunnyside release, Then and Now, my twentieth record as a leader, was the first time that I recorded with the instrument on an album of my own. I greatly enjoyed the kind of sonic liberation I found in freely combining and blending the Rhodes with the acoustic piano for a few tracks.

I love the warm, dark saturated overtones of the Rhodes. It is a beautiful sound and, like an acoustic piano, the way its overtones spill into one-another gives the instrument a truly orchestral quality. Although the Rhodes has bell-like characteristics in some ways similar to a vibraharp, it allows a lusciously orchestral dimensional expanse and substantiality.

I planned Benny’s Crib to be a continuation of the ensemble cast I’d presented on Then and Now, which is my working trio augmented by three guest performers, flautist Anne Drummond, vocalist Veronica Swift and percussionist Josh Jones for a few of the selections, as a further extensions of my basic instrumental palette of piano, bass and drums. With Anne’s flutes and Veronica’s voice, I like to “stack” or “layer” a virtual “few” of them to make chords and counterpoint, sometimes doubling the clusters I play on the piano with my right hand.

TRACKLIST

1. Benny Green - Tivoli
2. Benny Green - Central Park South
3. Benny Green - Coral Keys
4. Benny Green - My Girl Bill
5. Benny Green - Harold Land
6. Benny Green - Did We Try
7. Benny Green - Seascape
8. Benny Green - My One and Only Love
9. Benny Green - Something in Common
10. Benny Green - For Tomorrow
11. Benny Green - Benny's Crib



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