The litter, minus one: most of the line-up of Snarky Puppy’s Empire Central.
Back in the big-band-swing heyday of the 1940s, seeing up to 20 musicians onstage performing what was the era’s brand of popular music was not just common, but the norm. Today, with 19 members and a rotating crew of 25, Snarky Puppy is perhaps some new-age iteration of that once ubiquitous model—an electric jazz-rock-funk fusion orchestra version.
But before the four-time-Grammy-Award-winning ensemble was so massive in both size and sound, it was a somewhat smaller group of 10 college students, formed by bassist Michael League while he was studying at the University of North Texas in Denton, a city 30 miles outside of Dallas. The band’s music featured a blend of the aforementioned genres, and given the makeup of their original members, that made them an incidental example of cultural integration.
Snarky Puppy - Belmont (Empire Central)
“The band started with only white kids, when we were in college, but we basically only played the music of Black Americans,” acknowledges Chris McQueen, one of Snarky Puppy’s three guitarists. “Whether it was jazz or fusion, gospel, R&B … that was the source of all our inspiration. We started playing gigs, jamming with several musicians from the Black Dallas music scene. They were our heroes. That’s how we got connected to that world.
“What ended up happening was, we combined it, and it felt very natural,” he continues. “Shaun Martin, Bobby Sparks, Robert ‘Sput’ Searight, Jason ‘JT’ Thomas…. All those guys welcomed us in. I remember we would go to jam sessions. Sput was playing drums, and we would get up there and play the same songs that he wanted to, while coming at it from a very different perspective … then would meet in the middle and hopefully inspire each other.”
“People think of Nashville or Austin, but Dallas is really where it’s at!”–Chris McQueen
As Snarky Puppy’s lineup grew to include those players and many more, the group’s makeup became increasingly diverse. And on their new release, Empire Central,League asked the collective to reconnect with both the city of their founding and the lineage of Black music that defines their sound. “This is a ‘coming home’ kind of album. The idea was to try to either do an homage to [our musical foundation] or encapsulate it; pay tribute to it,” McQueen shares. “Dallas doesn’t always get the credit it deserves for being the music city that it is. People think of Nashville or Austin, but Dallas is really where it’s at!”
The 77-minute album was recorded over the course of eight nights in front of a live audience at Deep Ellum Art Company in Dallas, and, like everything Snarky Puppy has done, is musically polyglottal. While combining jazz, rock, funk, R&B, soul, and various international elements into one new, chimerical artistic mode is becoming a modern vernacular in its own right, the way they pull it off is all their own—as if it was delivered to us, their humble audience, via interstellar starship.
Snarky Puppy’s new album features a 19-piece version of the ensemble paying homage to its roots in Black American music and in the Dallas-area scene from which it emerged.
For example, “Trinity,” composed by guitarist Mark Lettieri, doesn’t announce a definitive musical identity. Rock weaves in, funk weaves out, and jazz makes for some adhesive, overall giving off a strong Weather Report influence. Violinist Zach Brock’s horn-driven “Honiara” jumps between odd-meter grooves, while keyboardist Bobby Sparks’ “Take It!” leans into a deep pocket with vibrato-heavy synthesizers and laidback trumpets. It also features a synth solo by Bernard Wright, a close friend of the group who passed away not long after the recording sessions.
More than half the band’s members contributed original compositions to Empire Central, and it all came together quickly. Leading up to the recorded performances, which took place in early March 2022, each composer put together a demo to bring to the band. While some final aspects of the arrangements were decided as a collective, most of each song was fully prepared before being shared.
Mark Lettieri’s Gear
Mark Lettieri used PRS guitars, a Dano baritone, and a Kemper Profiler for the Empire Central sessions. Here, he digs into his signature PRS Fiore model.
Photo by Brian Friedman
Guitars
- PRS Mark Lettieri Signature Fiore
- PRS McCarty 594
- Danelectro ’56 Reissue Baritone
Amps
- Kemper Profiler (Naylor Duel 60 head and 1x12)
Strings & Picks
- Dunlop (.009–.044, Fiore; .010–.046, McCarty 594; .014–.068, Danelectro)
- Dunlop heavy celluloid
Effects
- J. Rockett Mark Lettieri Signature Melody OD/EQ
- J. Rockett Hot Rubber Monkey
- Boss DS-1 Distortion
- MXR Poly Blue Octave
- MXR Carbon Copy
- MXR EVH Phase 90
- TC Electronic Nova System multi-effects
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame
- Line 6 M5 Stompbox Modeler
“Usually, whoever writes the song writes everything. They just make demos in Logic. We’ll send the Logic files to everyone in the band, and everybody learns all of the parts,” says Bob Lanzetti, another of Snarky’s guitarists. “We’ll learn the chords or the melodies; usually it’s not totally figured out in terms of form. Then, when we get together, we’ll trade parts around and see what works best for each section. Things definitely shift when we play live, too. Depending on who ends up being on stage, you might have to play parts that you’ve never played before. It keeps you on your toes, for sure.”
The drum parts are “sometimes, but not usually” fleshed out, Lanzetti explains. “If anything, it would be some kind of simple groove just to keep time. A lot of the time, we leave it up to the percussionists and drummers to come up with something, ’cause it’s always much better than what the rest of us do.”
The track list for Empire Central was put together during a series of intensive rehearsals for the live performances. As Lettieri explains, rehearsals were roughly 8 to 10 hours each day. “We would basically work on two songs in the morning, two songs in the afternoon, then two more songs that night. We holed up at Universal Rehearsal in Dallas, and that was our home for about a week.”
Given that Snarky Puppy’s mix of genres lends itself to a live setting, there’s been some division among fans over the quality of their studio versus stage recordings. For Empire Central, the band sought to actualize the best of both worlds through a live-in-the-studio recording process they prefer, with the Deep Ellum Art Company audience wired into the mix via headphones.
“Depending on who ends up being on stage, you might have to play parts that you’ve never played before. It keeps you on your toes, for sure.”–Bob Lanzetti
“The albums that most people know us for are ones that we did [with that setup], where we were trying to blend the best parts of a studio album with the best parts of a live album,” explains McQueen. “We felt like we needed that energy, but we didn’t want to have the sound of a live album, so the solution was to do that.”
In preparation for the performances, a crew built a studio at the venue that was fully equipped with mixing consoles, drums, keyboards, DI boxes, and Kemper Profiler amps, creating what Lettieri refers to as a “laboratory for us to record in.” Kempers were ideal for the small bar space. “Having that many guitar amps would have been a sound isolation nightmare,” he notes. They captured about five to six takes of each song. “It wasn’t really like a live gig, in the sense that we wanted to stay true to the compositions and keep our risk-taking to a minimum,” Lettieri adds, “but also, we still wanted to express ourselves and feed off of the audience.”
Lanzetti and Lettieri each contributed a song to Empire Central, following League’s suggestion to draw influences from artists who shaped Black music history. Lanzetti shares, “Especially in the United States, Black music is such a huge part of everything. Pretty much everything that exists was influenced by Black Americans, and in the early days by Africans who were brought here. It’s music we all grew up with. It was such a huge part of who I am. With writing, everything that you’ve ever listened to is going to be all wrapped up in that.”
Chris McQueen’s Gear
“We listen to each other a lot, and probably end up imitating each other,” says Chris McQueen of the band’s trio of guitarists. “We’re trying to mimic each other sometimes, or at least I am.”
Photo by Brian Friedman
Guitars
- Moollon Thinline T Classic
- Moollon LP-style
Amps
- Supro Coronado
- Supro Royal Reverb
- Brown-panel Fender Princeton
- Kemper Profiler (Doug Sewell amp)
Strings & Picks
- Dunlop Nickel .010s
- Blue Chip TD60
- Dunlop Gator 2.0 mm
- Surfpick wooden picks
Effects
- J. Rockett Archer
- Moog MF Delay
- Moog MF Chorus
- Moollon Tremolo
- Moollon British Octah Fuzz
- Telonics Multi-Taper Volume Pedal
- ZVEX Instant Lo-Fi Junky
- MXR M300 Reverb
- Vintage MXR Envelope Filter
- Jim Dunlop Cry Baby
- MXR Phase 95
- MXR Uni-Vibe
- (Wingman Option Knobs on all pedals)
With 19 members in the band, you might think it would besomewhat like a traditional big band, in the sense that there would be first, second, and third chairs, etc. But that’s not really how Snarky Puppy works. “There’s no competition,” says Lettieri. “Everyone’s on equal footing. Mike [League]’s assembled this crew of players that are all top-notch, who all have a very unique thing that they bring to the table. I think the main thing that makes the band work is just the massive amount of respect we have for each other’s talent.”
“Everyone has the opportunity to be an artist. None of us are really sidemen within Snarky Puppy,” Lanzetti adds. There is, however, still a leader in League, although his approach has shifted somewhat over the years. “In the beginning, Mike controlled things a lot more,” Lanzetti continues. “But once everyone started to get a sense of what the band was, and it started to have its own identity and its own sound, everybody kind of understood it and then he didn’t need to control it so much.”
“It’s kind of impossible, especially for a band this size, to be without a leader,” McQueen says, elaborating on some of the practical inner workings of performances. “We’ve kind of developed a system where, if he’s shaking his head, that means, ‘No, stay there, do exactly what you’re doing right now.’ And if he’s nodding his head, that means, ‘Yes, go on to the next thing.’ And that’s pretty much the way that we keep things organized.”
McQueen, Lanzetti, and Lettieri each come from slightly different musical backgrounds, which shape their individual playing and contributions to Snarky Puppy’s sound. McQueen mentions that he’s probably spent the most time playing indie rock, notably in the Texas-based bands Oso Closo and Foe Destroyer, which gives his approach a rawer edge. “I’m definitely very inspired by Radiohead, too—always have been,” he adds.
“It wasn’t really like a live gig, in the sense that we wanted to stay true to the compositions and keep our risk-taking to a minimum. But we still wanted to express ourselves and feed off of the audience.”–Mark Lettieri
“We listen to each other a lot, and probably end up imitating each other,” he continues. “We’re trying to mimic each other sometimes, or at least I am. I don’t know if the other guys are,” he laughs. He plays guitars made by Moollon, a Korean manufacturer, including a thinline T-style and another model that’s “kind of like a Les Paul, but not quite as saturated sounding.” Regarding influences, Hendrix is his “North Star,” but Kurt Rosenwinkel and Johnny “Guitar” Watson also come up, as well as the psychedelic rock band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. “It’s a continual virtuous cycle between hearing the music in my head, finding it on the instrument, and then playing it well. It’s a little bit of that Hendrix thing, too,” he continues. “He was very obsessed with surprising people. Once you get them accustomed to the thing that they think they’re going to hear from you, you play something else.”
For the past few years, Lanzetti has been playing a Fodera, made by the Brooklyn-based company, modeled after his favorite Stratocaster. “I have a Tokai as well that I used to use all the time. I’m starting to use it a little more again,” he shares. “But that’s what I’m usually playing—some sort of single-coil Strat-type sound. I also do a lot of single-note, syncopated funky stuff. I used to be in an Afrobeat band, so a lot of that influence comes out.”
Lanzetti lists Bill Frisell, Wayne Krantz, and David Fiuczynski of the Screaming Headless Torsos among his main influences, along with Freddie King, Albert King, Django Reinhardt, and Charlie Christian. “Then, besides that, a lot of the textural stuff I do is kind of coming from non-guitar-based music. I’m really into a lot of 20th-century classical music—people like György Ligeti, Belá Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern.”
When it comes to improvising, Lanzetti says, “The goal for me is to try to have there be no difference between improvising free or improvising on a tune. A lot of times when I’m practicing, I’ll play free for a while, and then start improvising over a tune. I try to make it feel as open as it did when I was playing free.”
Bob Lanzetti’s Gear
For the Empire Central sessions, Bob Lanzetti relied on a Tokai S-style and the Fodera seen here.
Photo by Brian Friedman
Guitars
- Fodera S-style
- Tokai S-style
Amps
- Kemper Profiler (Fender Vibrolux)
- Victoria 20112
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario sets
- Gravity Gold series 1.5 mm
Effects
- ZVEX Fuzz Factory
- ZVEX Box of Rock
- Boss DD-6 Digital Delay
- Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Empress Tremolo
- Strymon blueSky
- Electro-Harmonix POG2
- EBow
Lettieri comes from a rock background, but has a “pretty heavy funk influence, and sometimes I like to shred, sometimes I like to play lyrical stuff. The Snarky Puppy guitar chair is a challenging gig, because a lot of times I’m playing a part that makes more sense when somebody else plays it.” He shares that when the band is on tour, he might be the only guitar player, and then he has to learn Lanzetti and McQueen’s parts. “It stretches me,” he elaborates. “They probably feel the same: ‘Aw, man, I’ve got to learn this Lettieri part! This is a Lettieri part!’ But with this record in particular, I’m at home with a lot of the stuff I’m playing. I don’t feel like I’m having to wear someone else’s pants to do it.”
Lettieri’s primary guitar is a PRS Mark Lettieri Signature Fiore. His secondaries include a PRS McCarty 594 and a Danelectro ’56 Baritone reissue. His big three influences are Prince, Jeff Beck, and Eddie Van Halen, but also mentions Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Metallica, A Tribe Called Quest, and ZZ Top as heroes. As an improviser, he subscribes to Eddie Van Halen’s philosophy that soloing can be like “falling down the stairs and landing on your feet.” “That always resonated to me,” he says. “I love risk-taking improvisers. Sometimes it’s brilliant, sometimes it’s flawed, but it’s human and it’s personal.”
It’s clear from the guitarists that the band dynamic is overall familial and playful. After hearing about our interview with Lanzetti, Lettieri immediately interjects, “Whatever he said was a lie! All hearsay. He’s a big liar.”
And McQueen later calls everything into question, saying, “But you don’t know if Mark is a liar, too. How can you know who to trust?”
“Everyone has the opportunity to be an artist. None of us are really sidemen within Snarky Puppy.”–Bob Lanzetti
Lettieri adds, “We haven’t killed each other yet, so I guess we’re good enough buddies. It’s a family at this point.”
“There’s so many different kinds of personalities given the fact that the band is so big,” says Lanzetti. “It’s also nice because you can bounce around from little groups of a couple people. There are little groups within the band of people who like to hang out with each other a lot. But we all really like food, so we like to go find nice restaurants or whatever a particular place has to offer.” He adds, as an afterthought, “We used to play frisbee a lot.”
In response to a tongue-in-cheek question asking what this album would say if it had a voice, Lettieri laughs heartily: “It would say, ‘What’s up!’ You know what I mean? It’s a very inviting album. It’s deep compositionally, but it’s not going to be over your head.” He continues, “Honestly, it might be a cool way for a lot of people who have never heard the band to hear the band. There’s something for everybody. There’s some pretty heavy, intricate stuff; there’s some really beautiful, melodic ballad stuff; there’s some really deep, groovin’ stuff. It’s a little bit of energy. I’m really, really stoked about this one.”
Snarky Puppy - Bet (Empire Central)
In this excerpt from the live sessions for Empire Central, Snarky Puppy highlight their intuitive synergy on “Bet,” with 19 voices forging one fluid vibe.
- Rig Rundown: Snarky Puppy ›
- Hooked: Mark Lettieri on Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" ›
- Cory Wong: The Sound of Joy ›
- The Evolution of Guitar Content and Media - Premier Guitar ›
On her new record with her trio, Molly Miller executes a live-feeling work of structural harmony that mirrors her busy life.
Miller has a lot on her plate. In addition to gigs leading the Molly Miller Trio, she also plays guitar in Jason Mraz’s band, and teaches at her alma mater, the University of Southern California (USC), where, after a nine-year stint, she earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in music. In 2022, she became a professor of studio guitar at USC. Prior to that, she was the chair of the guitar department at the Los Angeles College of Music.
Molly Miller's Gear
Miller plays a fair bit of jazz, but considers herself simply a guitarist first: “Why do I love the guitar? Because I discovered Jimi Hendrix.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Guitars
- 1978 Gibson ES-335
- Fender 1952 Telecaster reissue with a different neck and a bad relic job (purchased from Craigslist)
- Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P-90s
Amps
- Benson Nathan Junior
- Benson Monarch
- Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue (modified to “widen sound”)
Effects
- Chase Bliss Audio Dark World
- Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl
- EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master
- EarthQuaker Devices Dunes
- EarthQuaker Devices Special Cranker
- JAM Pedals Wahcko
- JAM Pedals Ripply Fall
- Strymon Flint
- Fulltone Clyde Wah
- Line 6 Helix (for touring)
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball .011s for ES-335 and Les Paul
- Ernie Ball .0105s for Telecaster
- Fender Celluloid Confetti 351 Heavy Picks
To get things done, Miller has had to rely on a laser-focused approach to time management. “I’ve always kind of been juggling different aspects of my career. I was in grad school, getting a doctorate, TA-ing full time—so, teaching probably 20 hours a week, and then also doing probably four or five gigs a week, and getting a degree,” explains Miller. “I had to figure out how to create habits of, ‘I really want to play a lot of guitar, and gig a lot, but I also need to finish my degree and make extra money teaching, and I also want to practice.’ There’s a certain level of organization and thinking ahead that I always feel like I have to be doing.”
“The concept of the Molly Miller Trio—and also a part of my playing—is we are playing songs, we are bringing back the instrumental, we are thinking about the arrangement.”
The Molly Miller Trio’s latest release, The Battle of Hotspur, had its origins during the pandemic. Miller and bassist Jennifer Condos started writing the songs in March 2020, sending files back and forth to each other. They finally finished writing the album’s last song, “Head Out,” in December 2021, and four months later, recorded the album in just two days. The 12-song collection is subtle and cool, meandering like a warm, sparkling country river through a backwoods county. The arrangements feel spacious and distinctly Western—Miller’s guitar lines are clean and clear and dripped with just the right level of reverb, trem, and chorus, while Jay Bellerose’s brush-led percussion trots alongside like a trusty steed.
The Battle of Hotspur has a live feel, and that aspect was 100-percent deliberate. Miller says, “That’s the exact intention of our records—we want to create a record that we can play live. Jason Wormer, the recording and mixing engineer that did our record, came to a show of ours and was like, ‘This is incredible.’ He’s recorded so many records and was like, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever recorded a record that sounds the same live.’ And that was our exact intention. Because I feel like [the goal of] the trio itself was to be full. It’s not supposed to be like, ‘Oh, let’s put saxophone and let’s put keys and other guitars on it.’ The concept of the record is a full trio like the way Booker T. & the M.G.’s were. It’s not, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you added another instrument?’ No, we’re an instrumental trio.”
Musicality is what separates Miller from the rest of the pack. She has prodigious chops but uses them appropriately, when it makes musical sense, and her ability to honor a song’s written melody and bring it to life is one of her strong suits. “That’s a huge part of what we do,” she says. “The concept of the Molly Miller Trio—and also a part of my playing—is we are playing songs, we are bringing back the instrumental, we are thinking about the arrangement. The solo is a vehicle to further the story, to further the song, not just for me to shred. So often, you play a song, and you could be playing the solo over any song. There’s not enough time spent talking about how to play a melody convincingly, and then play a solo that’s connected to the melody.... Whether it’s a pop song, an original, or a standard, how you’re playing it is everything, and not just how you’re shredding over it.”
Miller still gets pigeonholed by expectations in the music industry, including the assumption that she’s a singer-songwriter: “I don’t sing. I’m a fucking guitar player.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Miller’s strong sense of melody can be traced to her diverse palette of influences. Even though she’s a “jazzer” by definition, she’ll cover pop songs like the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do is Dream” and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Miller says, “I spent nine years in jazz school. I practice ‘Giant Steps’ still for fun because I think it’s good for my guitar playing. But it was a release to be like, ‘I am not just a jazz guitar player at all!’ Why do I love the guitar? Because I discovered Jimi Hendrix, right? What made me feel things in high school? Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and No Doubt. It’s like, Grant Green’s not why I play the guitar.
“I play jazz guitar, but I’m a guitar player that loves jazz. What do I put on my playlist? It’s not like I just listen to Wes Montgomery. I go from Wes Montgomery to the Beach Boys to freakin’ Big Thief to Bob Dylan to Dave Brubeck. The musicians I love are people who tell stories and have something to say—Brian Wilson, Cat Stevens.... They’re amazing songwriters.”
“Whether it’s a pop song, an original, or a standard, how you’re playing it is everything, and not just how you’re shredding over it.”
Despite a successful career, Miller continually faces sexism in the industry. “I went to a guitar hang two days ago. It was a big company, and they invited me to come and check out guitars. And I’m playing—I clearly know how to play the instrument—and this photographer there is like, ‘Oh, so are you a singer?’ And I’m just like, ‘No, I don’t sing. Fuck you,’” recalls Miller. “It’s such an internal struggle because of the interactions I have with the world. This kind of gets this thing in me where I feel like I need to prove to people, like, I am a guitar player. And at this point, I know I’m established enough. I play the guitar, and I know how to play it. I’m good, whatever. There still is this ego portion that I’m constantly fighting, and it comes from random people walking up to me and asking about me playing acoustic guitar and my singer-songwriter career or whatever. And I’m like, ‘I don’t sing. I’m a fucking guitar player.’”
YouTube It
Molly Miller gets to both tour with and open up for Jason Mraz’s band. Here’s a taste of Miller leading into Mraz’s set with some adeptly and intuitively performed riffs from a show in July 2022.
George Benson’s Dreams Do Come True: When George Benson Meets Robert Farnonwas recorded in 1989. The collaboration came about after Quincy Jones told the guitarist that Farnon was “the greatest arranger in all the world.”
On that recommendation,Benson tapped Farnon for a 1989 recording project encompassing the jazz standards “My Romance” and “At Last” next to mid-century pop chestnut “My Prayer,” the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and Leon Russell’s “A Song for You,” among others.
Across the album, Benson’s voice is the main attraction, enveloped by Farnon’s luxuriant big-band and string arrangements that give each track a warm, velveteen sheen. His guitar playing is, of course, in top form, and often sounds as timeless as the tunes they undertake: On “Autumn Leaves,” you could pluck the stem of the guitar solo and seat it neatly into an organ-combo reading of the tune, harkening back to the guitarist’s earlier days. But as great as any George Benson solo is bound to be, on Dreams Do Come True, each is relatively short and supportive. At this phase of his career, as on 1989’s Tenderlyand 1990’s Count Basie Orchestra-backed Big Boss Band, Benson was going through a jazz-singer period. If there’s something that sets the ballad-centric Dreams Do Come Trueapart, it’s that those other records take a slightly more varied approach to material and arranging.
When it was finished, the Benson/Farnon collaboration was shelved, and it stayed that way for 35 years. Now released, it provides a deeper revelation into this brief phase of Benson’s career. In 1993, he followed up Big Boss Man with an updated take on the smooth, slick pop that brought him blockbuster fame in the previous two decades and delivered Love Remembers.
Love is Blue (feat. The Robert Farnon Orchestra)
This kind of stylistic jumping around, of musical discovery, is a thread through Benson’s legendary career. From his days as a young child busking in Pittsburgh, where his favorite song to play was “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” he evolved through backing Brother Jack McDuff and leading his own organ combo, into his soulful and funky CTI Records phase, where he proved himself one of the most agile and adroit players in the jazz-guitar game. He eventually did the most improbable—and in anyone else’s hands thus far, impossible—feat and launched into pop superstardom with 1976’s Breezin’ and stayed there for years to come, racking up No. 1 hits and a host of Grammy awards.
At this moment, deep into his career at 81 years old, Benson continues to dive into new settings. While anyone observing from the sidelines might conclude that Benson has already excelled in more varied musical situations than any other instrumentalist, he somehow continues to discover new sides to his musicality. In 2018, he joined the Gorillaz on their technicolor indie-pop single “Humility,” and in 2020 he tracked his guitar onBootsy Collins’ “The Power of the One.” Benson assures me that not only are there more recordings in the archive that he’s waiting to reveal, but there are more wide-ranging collaborations to come.
On Dreams Do Come True, Benson covers classic jazz repertoire, plus he revisits the Beatles—whose work he covered on 1970’s The Other Side of Abbey Road—and Leon Russell, whose “This Masquerade” brought Benson a 1976 Grammy award for Record of the Year.
PG: The range of songs that you’ve played throughout your career, from your jazz records to 1970’s The Other Side ofAbbey Road or 1972’s White Rabbit album to 2019’s Chuck Berry and Fats Domino tribute, Walking to New Orleans, is so broad. Of course, now I’m thinking about the songs on Dreams Do Come True. How do you know when a song is a good fit?
George Benson: Well, you can’t get rid of it. It stays with you all the time. They keep popping up in your memory.
All the stuff that Sinatra did, and Nat King Cole did, and Dean Martin, that’s the stuff I grew up on. I grew up in a multinational neighborhood. There were only 30 African Americans in my school, and they had 1,400 students, but it was a vocational school.
I remember all that stuff like yesterday because it’s essential to who I am today. I learned a lot from that. You would think that would be a super negative thing. Some things about it were negative—you know, the very fact that there were 1,400 students and only 30 African Americans. But what I learned in school was how to deal with people from all different parts of the world.
After my father made my first electric guitar. I made my second one….
You made your second guitar?
Benson: Yeah, I designed it. My school built it for me. I gave them the designs, sent it down to the shop, they cut it out, I sent it to the electric department, and then I had to put on the strings myself. I brought my amplifier to school and plugged it in. Nobody believed it would work, first of all. When I plugged it in, my whole class, they couldn’t believe that it actually worked. So, that became my thing, man. “Little Georgie Benson—you should hear that guitar he made.”“I can let my mind go free and play how I feel.”
George Benson's Gear
The Benson-designed Ibanez GB10 was first introduced in 1977.
Photo by Matt Furman
Strings & Picks
- Ibanez George Benson Signature pick
- Thomastik-Infeld George Benson Jazz Strings
Accessories
- Radial JDI Passive Direct Box
So, your environment informed the type of music you were listening to and playing from a young age.
Benson: No doubt about it, man. Because remember, rock ’n’ roll was not big. When the guitar started playing with the rock bands, if you didn’t have a guitar in your band, you weren’t really a rock band. But that was later, though. It started with those young groups and all that hip doo-wop music.
I was known in Pittsburgh as Little Georgie Benson, singer. Occasionally, I would have the ukulele or guitar when the guitar started to get popular.
What’s your playing routine like these days? Do you play the guitar every day, and what do you play?
Benson: Not like I used to. Out of seven days, I probably play it four or five days.
I used to play virtually every day. It was just a natural thing for me to pick up. I had guitars strategically placed all over my house. As soon as I see one, my brain said, “Pick that up.” So, I would pick it up and start playing with new ideas. I don’t like going over the same thing over and over again because it makes you boring. I would always try to find something fresh to play. That’s not easy to do, but it is possible.
I’m looking for harmony. I’m trying to connect things together. How do I take this sound or this set of chord changes and play it differently? I don’t want to play it so everybody knows where I’m going before I even get there, you know?
“I wasn’t trying to sound loud. I was trying to sound good.”
How did you develop your guitar tone, and what is important about a guitar tone?
Benson: Years ago, the guitar was an accompaniment or background instrument, usually accompanying somebody or even accompanying yourself. But it was not the lead instrument necessarily. If they gave you a solo, you got a chance to make some noise.
As it got serious later on, I started looking for a great sound. I thought it was in the size of the guitar. So, I went out and bought this tremendously expensive guitar, big instrument. And I found that, yeah, that had a big sound, but that was not it. I couldn’t make it do what I wanted it to do. I found that it comes from my phrasing, the way I phrase things and the way I set up my guitar, and how I work with the amplifier. I wasn’t trying to sound loud. I was trying to sound good.
George Benson at Carnegie Hall in New York City on September 23,1981. The previous year, he received Grammy awards for “Give Me the Night,” “Off Broadway,” and “Moody’s Mood.”
Photo by Ebet Roberts
When I think about your playing, I’m automatically thinking about your lead playing so much of the time. But I think that your rhythm playing is just as iconic. What do you think is the most important thing about rhythm guitar parts, comping, and grooving?
Benson: That word comp, I finally found out what it really represents. I worked with a man called Jack McDuff, who took me out of Pittsburgh when I was 19 years old. He used to get mad at me all the time. “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? I can’t hear what you’re playing because you play so low”—because I used to be scared. I didn’t want people to hear what I was playing because then they would realize I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? I would play very mousy. He said, “Man, I don’t know if you play good or bad because I can’t hear you. Man, play out. People don’t know what you’re playing. They’ll accept whatever it is you do; they’ll think you meant to do it. Either it’s good or bad.”
So I started playing out and I found there’s a great truth in what he said. When you play out, you sound like you know what you’re doing. People say, “Oh wow, this cat is a monster.” It either feels good and sounds good or it doesn’t. So, I learned how to make those beeps and bops and things sound good and feel good.
The word comp comes from complementing. Whoever’s coming in to solo is out front. I gotta make them sound good. And that’s why people call me today. I had a record with a group called the Gorillaz. That’s the reason why they called me is because they realized that I knew what to do when I come to complement somebody. I did not have a lead role in that song. But I loved playing it once I found the space for me. I said, “Man, I don’t wanna just play it on an album. I wanna mean something.”
I did something with Bootsy Collins, who is a monster. I said, “Why is he calling me? I’m not a monster, man.” But he heard something in me he wanted on his record, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I said, “No, I don’t think I can do it, man. I don’t think I can do you any good.” He said, “Try something, man. Try anything.” So I did. I didn’t think I could do that, but it came out good. Now I’m getting calls from George Clinton.
You worked on something with George Clinton?
Benson: Not yet, but that’s what I’m working on now, because he called me and said, “Man, do something with me.”
That’s not going to be easy. You know, I gotta find something that fits his personality, and where I can enhance it, not just throw something together, because that wouldn’t be right for the public. We want something musical, something that lasts for a long time.
“I can let my mind go free and play how I feel.”
In the liner notes for Dreams Do Come True, you say that there’s always more to be discovered. You just mentioned the Gorillaz, then Bootsy Collins and George Clinton. You have such a wide, open exploration of music. How has discovery and exploration guided your career?
Benson: Well, this is the thing that we didn’t have available a few years ago. Now, we can play anything. You couldn’t cross over from one music to another without causing some damage to your career, causing an uproar in the industry.
When Wes Montgomery did “Going Out of My Head” and Jimmy Smith did “Walk on the Wild Side,” it caused waves in the music industry, because radio was not set up for that. You were either country or jazz or pop or blues or whatever it was. You weren’t crossing over because there was no way to get that played. Now there is.
Because I’ve had something to do with most of those things I just mentioned, my mind goes back to when I was thinking, “What if I played it like this? No, people won’t like that. What if I played it like this? Now, they won’t like that either.” Now, I can let my mind go free and play how I feel, and they will find some way to get it played on the air.
YouTube It
George Benson digs into the Dave Brubeck-penned standard “Take Five” at the height of the ’80s, showing his unique ability to turn any tune into a deeply grooving blaze-fest.
