Benevento has won acceptance with jam-band crowd.
Benevento likes to toy with jazz-rock sound
Benevento has won acceptance with jam-band crowd.
OAKLAND, Calif. - For Marco Benevento, making music is a lot like child's play. Trained in jazz and engaged by rock and pop, the renegade pianist and keyboardist brings a mischievous sensibility to the bandstand with a genre-smashing book of melodically alluring original compositions and tunes by the likes of Leonard Cohen, Deerhoof, George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, and Beck.
He also comes equipped with a treasure chest of cheap plastic playthings rejiggered into surprisingly flexible instruments. He might be the only musician who has to share the tools of his trade with his 2-year-old daughter.
"She has a couple of bent squeaky toys in her box that belong to me," says Benevento, 31, who opens for the San Francisco-based rock band Tea Leaf Green at the Paradise Rock Club tonight. Benevento will perform with his trio, which features former Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey bassist Reed Mathis and the Slip drummer Andrew Barr.
"When I incorporate the bent toys with piano, we get this interesting clashing element," Benevento says after a set by Quartet the Killer, a band he assembled to play instrumental renditions of Neil Young songs, part of a weekly residency at jazz club Yoshi's. "There's this very organic, beautiful, timeless sound messed up with these eight-bit plastic, harmful-to-the-environment toys."
He uses all his different implements to fascinating effect on his new trio album, "Me Not Me," which he released himself in February. Benevento first gained widespread attention with drummer Joe Russo in their volatile post-jazz project, which found an audience through performances at Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, SXSW, and Bonnaroo.
While the duo's music was far more structured than the jam bands they often shared stages with, a tour with Phish's Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon cemented their status on the scene. Leading his own band, Benevento is less of a shredder and more focused on developing infectious melodic themes.
"Marco has incredible chops, but a lot of the time he doesn't really solo, and when he does it's so minimal," says Mathis, who parted ways with Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey after 15 years to join Tea Leaf Green and spend more time touring with Benevento.
Benevento traces his earliest musical memories to his family's Neapolitan song sessions led by his Italian-speaking grandparents. Immersing himself in jazz at Berklee College of Music in the late 1990s, he studied with Joanne Brackeen. Later, while pursuing a master's degree at Queens College he soaked up musical insights from Sir Roland Hanna, Kenny Werner, and Brad Mehldau.
It was only after finishing his formal studies that Benevento really started composing, particularly after he reconnected with his junior high school buddy Russo, who recruited him for a weekly gig at the Knitting Factory in New York. As the headquarters of the experimental downtown scene, the Knit was an ideal environment for Benevento's sonic tinkering.
"When Joe and I first went on the road, we were listening to some Coltrane, and at one point he said, 'You know, what gets me off more than a solo is a song,' " says Benevento, who will return to Boston on July 1 for a show at the MFA.
"I was coming from a jazz school and the Italian background and all the other stuff I listened to, and I thought to myself, what do I like better?," Benevento says. "And I feel like I landed on the song side more than the improv side, which was hard, because I was studying Bill Evans and Kenny Kirkland. I need to get some improvisation in, but I can't fight my desire and love for melodic songs."
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
