Biography
These days George Benson, born March 22, 1943 in Pittsburgh, PA, tends to be cast primarily as a commercial R&B and pop vocalist who occasionally returns to the guitar in a pop-jazz setting. Yet during his twenties the jazz community regarded him instead as a hard bop and soul-jazz instrumentalist whose guitar work drew most heavily from Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian. In the early and middle years of the 1960s he embodied straight-ahead jazz, and devotees of the idiom praised the bop-centered approach of the George Benson Quartet, the hard-swinging group he assembled in 1965, eleven years before his major pop breakthrough arrived with the multi-platinum 1976 album Breezin'. Although the ensemble lasted only briefly, many purists continue to view it as Benson’s finest accomplishment. The quartet took shape soon after he departed the employ of organist Jack McDuff; by 1965 the guitarist was prepared to lead full time, and he did so with a hard bop and soul-jazz lineup that featured Ronnie Cuber on baritone saxophone, the Jimmy Smith-influenced Lonnie Smith on organ, and a rotating cast of drummers that included Jimmy Lovelace, Ray Lucas, and Marion Booker. In its brief run the George Benson Quartet produced two strong John Hammond-produced Columbia albums, It’s Uptown in 1965 and The George Benson Cookbook in 1966. Benson sang from time to time with the group, yet the bulk of its output remained instrumental, and it was during this short period that he composed such bop instrumentals as “Clockwise,” “The Cooker,” “Benson’s Rider,” “The Borgia Stick,” and “Myna Bird Blues.” To the disappointment of bop enthusiasts the George Benson Quartet never reached a second anniversary, dissolving in 1966.
Albums
