GEORGE SHEARING & JIM HALL / FIRST EDITION.ESCALANDRUM / PIAZZOLA PLAYS PIAZZOLA.BOBBY SHEW & THE METROPOLE ORCHESTRA / BOBBY SHEW.STANLEY TURRENTINE & MILT JACKSON / CHERRY.MARC RIBOT THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS / LIVE IN TOKY.CHUCK MANGIONE & STEVE GADD / TOGETHER FOREVER.WALTER MALOSETTI / TRIBUTO A DJANGO REINHARDT.ART PEPPER & CONTE CANDOLI / MUCHO CALOR (MUCH HEA.Whatever we put on this record will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Yes, we both sell records, but let's go beyond that. It has to have some kind of meaning for both of us. They said, ‘Mr Benson, would you please put something on it?' I said, ‘You know, I don't really make records like that, just to put something on it. "I first turned it down," he says, "and they sent it back. Even if Mr B's modesty almost scuppered what would become a Top 10 Billboard hit. So much so that two years ago, when Damon Albarn wrote a feel-good roller-skating tune called Humility for his cartoon pop band Gorillaz, there was only one man who could bring the requisite breeze to the arrangement. The unmistakable Benson sound was an indelible part of the tapestry of modern music. "Twiddly-doo." Three more albums followed into the Top 10 of the pop charts, peaking with Give Me The Night in 1980. The one after that, with Warner Brothers' backing, was Breezin.' "Do doo doot-doo doot-doo doo," it went. His next record, he faithfully reports, sold 100,000, "which was phenomenal for jazz people". "You mean to tell me he's listening to me, and I ain't got a dime? How is that possible?" So when Benson picked up a magazine to find the bad cat with the poodle hair citing him as inspiration, he decided to make his play for the million-sellers club. Everybody told me, this cat Peter Frampton's number one in the world. sold 8 million albums and that was unheard of. at that time, had the biggest album ever recorded. "I was not prepared because nobody else had ever done it," Benson says. I thought it was one of the best things I ever did in my life." "I knew that was gonna be an unpopular move in the jazz world," he chuckles. The Other Side of Abbey Road was recorded by the great Rudy Van Gelder, and featured Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock. With his jazz cred riding high after a guest appearance on Miles Davis' Miles In the Sky, he turned to the brand new Beatles album for inspiration. It was a great study for me and it helped to get me to where we are today."Ī telling sign of Benson's aspirations came in late 1969. At the time I was just a guy who sang whatever was popular on the radio and that went from blues to rhythm and blues to popular music and jazz.
#BREEZIN GEORGE BENSON MOVIE PROFESSIONAL#
His 25-year professional journey to that point sounds, with hindsight, more like a study in popular tastes than anything genre-specific. When he claims that his 1976 breakthrough, Breezin', has now sold 3 million, you'd best believe him.
![breezin george benson movie breezin george benson movie](https://i.vimeocdn.com/filter/overlay?src0=https%3A%2F%2Fi.vimeocdn.com%2Fvideo%2F538219263_1280x960&src1=https%3A%2F%2Ff.vimeocdn.com%2Fimages_v6%2Fshare%2Fplay_icon_overlay.png)
![breezin george benson movie breezin george benson movie](https://i.etsystatic.com/12369699/r/il/f8e671/2589745671/il_570xN.2589745671_stvc.jpg)
I went through that period never imagining that one day I would actually compete with those kind of record sales." At one point, he sold more records than Elvis Presley! It was him, Elvis and Dean Martin who were the kings of the record industry. "At that time, Chuck Berry sold a lot of records but Fats Domino sold almost as many records as Elvis Presley. In the closet, where most men in their mid-70s might stash a set of golf clubs, 40 gleaming guitars await the master's touch. The "office" at the far end of the house is "a fabulous place", he says, "‘cause no one ever comes in here but me". "Twiddly-doo."Ī short skip away, relaxing at home in one of the Arizona capital's more salubrious suburbs, the jazz-pop guitar veteran is still trying to get it right. "Do doo doot-doo doot-doo doo," it whispers. The big blonde Gibson Johnny Wood jazz guitar comes breezin' and scattin' from its glass case in ruffled shirt and satin lapels. Of all the voices twanging on your synapses, none is more instantly identifiable than George Benson's. Bo Diddley's box-shaped "Bad Dude" puts a choo-choo shuffle in your shoes. Pete Townshend's #5 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, miraculously intact from 1976, kerrrangs like a detuned power chord. If your internal antenna's tuned right, some of them speak to you as you pass. Lone guitars occupy a dizzying swathe of the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.