Marco Benevento
Invisible Baby (Hyena)
ESSENTIAL "Bus Ride"
Marco Benevento, the 30-year-old pianist who put out one of last year's most exciting albums, the three-CD set "Live at Tonic," is back with a studio effort. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Benevento is something of an iconoclast on the piano. He knows his Monk and his Basie, but he prefers to play like a rock star, bashing power chords into the ivories and hooking up with others who straddle the rock-jazz line. On "Invisible Baby," he sticks to the trio format, teaming with bassist Reed Mathis (of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey) and alternating between jazz-rock drummers Matt Chamberlain (Tori Amos, Fiona Apple) and Andrew Barr (the Slip). Benevento creates simple themes, often built on two- and four-bar phrases, and doesn't stray far from them. The opener, "Bus Ride," comes straight out of the Bad Plus school of jazz, trading in big fat piano chords, pounding drums, and a loud, distorted bass. "Atari" opens like a techno tune, with synthesized loops that conjure images of a little guy name Mario climbing ladders and jumping over barrels. Is it jazz? Is it rock? Hard to say, but it hardly matters. [Steve Greenlee]
