For this masterful meeting of musical minds, bass legend Pino Palladino and legend-in-the-making Blake Mills forged a creative partnership that led to a borderless take on small-ensemble instrumental music.
"Yeah, Pino, do you have this big archive of stuff?" Blake Mills is ribbing Pino Palladino about the question I just asked, but it's something we're both very interested to know. "Yeah, I do," the legendary bassist exasperatedly replies, as if he's finally let out the secret that he's been composing and recording original music throughout four-and-a-half decades, keeping it to himself until now.
At 63, Palladino is pretty deep into his career to be releasing his first album of original material. But since the early 1980s, he's been busy contributing to recordings by so many other artists that it really isn't surprising he's just finding the time. "I've waited this long to record something of my own because it's all about space. I've been working on other people's music, which is so different," he says.
Palladino's credits read like a list of the best-selling artists of each decade he's been active, starting in the '80s with Gary Numan, Phil Collins, Elton John, and Don Henley, moving into the '90s alongside Melissa Etheridge, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, and Michael McDonald, tracking for John Mayer, Erykah Badu, and D'Angelo in the 2000s, and with Keith Urban, John Legend, and Harry Styles in the 2010s—with many, many, many others along the way.
Off The Cuff
What's even more impressive than his resume is that Palladino seems to leave his mark on every session he plays. His nuanced feel adds such a personal touch that it seems as though he puts himself into every note in a way that is instantly recognizable, no matter what style of music he's performing.
On Notes with Attachments, we're finally invited to hear what kind of music has been marinating inside Palladino's head all these years, and the result is exceptional and almost indescribable for its unique sound. Featuring the bassist's compositions, the album was brought to life in collaboration with Mills—who produced, co-wrote, and played on it—and with assistance from heavy-hitting musicians, including keyboardist Larry Goldings, saxophonist Sam Gendel, and drummer Chris Dave.
Throughout the album's 31 minutes, Palladino, Mills, and company throw down an eclectic stew of references that stretch from jazz to minimalism to hip-hop to global sources that span from West Africa to South America. This broad swath of influences makes for a thrilling and dimensional listen, while supple, expert-level grooves provide a warm and cohesive foundation. Every track exhibits high-minded production values that make the album feel futuristic, and we'll be awfully lucky if this is a glimpse of where instrumental music is headed.
"I've waited this long to record something of my own because it's all about space."—Pino Palladino
When pressed about it, Palladino sounds as if the idea of recording an album of his own is something that's always been lingering in the abstract, a possibility that made sense but remained undefined. It wasn't until the last few years that the pieces of the puzzle started to coalesce, as he cut the rhythm tracks for his Fela Kuti-inspired number "Ekuté."
"That came out of something I recorded with drummer Chris Dave at my house in London," Palladino explains. "He and I met in 2009 or so, when we were working on Adele's 21, and started getting together. We recorded that without knowing what we would use it for—whether it would be something of mine or some kind of collaboration between he and I. I showed it to Marcus Strickland, who added the bass clarinet arrangement."
After meeting Mills while working on John Legend's Darkness and Light, Palladino played it for the producer/guitarist, who helped finish the track and explains, "When I played my guitar part on it, I was trying to think like a baritone sax player, where the singer left the band and the baritone sax is playing the melody."
Pino Palladino's career is packed with blue-ribbon studio and stage credits. Here, he stands with the Who, with whom he toured from 2002 to 2017, playing a Fender Jaguar Bass.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Pino Palladino's Gear
Basses
- 1961 Fender Precision
- 1963 Fender Precision
- 1960s Magnatone Hurricane
- 1977 Music Man StingRay fretless
Strings
- La Bella Flatwound (various gauges)
- Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound (various gauges)
Mills goes on: "When Pino played that for me, that was the first time that I got to hear Pino as a composer." Intrigued by the possibilities he heard, Mills encouraged the bassist to continue their collaboration, which became an essential part of the album's creative process. Palladino started to present ideas to Mills in various states of completion: some were one or two parts, while others were full demos. "We were uncertain what we were working on," says Mills, adding, "I'm not really sure what we've made or what kind of music this is."
Uncertainty was an asset throughout the recording process, as the two musicians figured out what they would work on and what they could experiment with. Palladino first recorded the track "Soundwalk" in 2000 while snowed in during his tour as a member of D'Angelo's backing band, the Soultronics, on the Voodoo tour. Palladino laid down bass, guitar, and drum machine in his hotel room, and passed it on to his Soultronics bandmate, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, who added a full horn arrangement to the minidisc recording. While he loved the track, the original disc has since gone missing, and the bassist only had an MP3 of the song. Although he could have re-recorded the whole thing, Palladino felt there was something extra-special about Schwarz-Bart's part that would be impossible to recreate.
Kismet intervened when Mills received a demo of a new app called Rebalance, which features a technology that allows users to essentially create stems from full recordings. Mills' friend, software developer Dave Godowsky, was in the studio to demo the app for Mills when Palladino walked in and played them the demo for "Soundwalk." They used Rebalance to extract the horn part and, while Mills explains that Rebalance was capable of a clean extraction, they became inspired as they "toggled between the parts" and messed with the app's settings. The version of the horn arrangement they ended up using allowed artifacts of the original recording to bleed onto the refurbished track, creating a sound Mills describes as "almost anechoic."
TIDBIT: More than 40 years of composing and two-and-a-half years of on-and-off recording went into the creation of this album—the first to feature Pino Palladino's name on its cover.
Then, they used this extracted track to build the new version of the song, with contributions from Gendel, Goldings, and keyboardist Bruce Flowers. The result is a piece of cut-up minimal funk that sounds like a post-J Dilla update to Teo Macero's work on Miles Davis' On the Corner. Different colors of horn and keyboard parts interact sporadically across the stereo field, while weird percussion bits played by Mills groove with Palladino's distinctive bass bubble at the song's core.
It must have felt like advanced mathematics for Palladino and Mills to coordinate their busy schedules, but they found time to work on Notes with Attachments over the course of about two-and-a-half years. "We'd go in for a couple weeks here and there, and sometimes we wouldn't even have time to listen back to something we'd worked on for a couple weeks," says Palladino.
"When I was playing with Pino, I was really trying to watch him and be inspired by what he was playing and how he was playing."—Blake Mills
"Some music you can go in the studio and record quickly. I don't know what this record would sound like if we had done that," says Mills. Since both were constantly immersed in other projects, they had space to step away from the album, giving them perspective to hear their tracks with fresh ears. This patient workflow inspired experiments and challenges that might have never happened if they'd recorded the album faster.
One of Palladino's biggest experiments in making Notes with Attachments was to bring his melodic sense to the fore as he explored approaches to composition and sound that departed from his usual work as a session bassist. On the West African-inspired "Djurkel," Palladino decided to capo up and multi-track his playing in three bass parts, inspired by the 1-stringed instrument that gives the track its name. The song's looping bass figures interweave with each other to create a distorted melody that resembles a mbira ensemble and challenges the role of the bass guitar.
When talking about this composition, Palladino is quick to say the album is not about virtuosity or technique, but Mills interjects. "I think Pino is being humble here," and goes on to explain how the way the bassist phrases his lines and shapes his notes throughout are all informed by the overwhelming depth of his experience. Basically, Palladino puts it all into his playing, and it shows.
After co-forming an early version of the band Dawes, Blake Mills went on to become a touring and studio guitarist, and then a producer. Here, he plays a headlining gig at L.A.'s El Rey Theatre in 2014.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Palladino is quick to throw the compliment back to Mills, who, throughout our interview, seems to be looking at the big picture of the album and thinking from the perspective of a producer. While Mills is well known as a great guitarist, he often avoids being overtly guitaristic in his extremely prolific production work. His instrumental contributions are mostly understated throughout Notes with Attachments, but there are notable spots where his playing shines, as Palladino points out. The most obvious is the percussive breakout solo he takes on "Man from Molise." There, he's playing a Cuban tres, not a guitar, but that speaks to his instrumental role on the album. While Palladino has the low end on lock, Mills takes an open-eared approach, playing everything from djurkel to Coral electric sitar to guitar synth.
"When I was playing with Pino," Mills says, "I was really trying to watch him and be inspired by what he was playing and how he was playing."It's charming to hear each of these two giants of their instruments defer so strongly to the other's abilities. And it's no show. These guys both know how great the other is, and despite all the time they spend in the studio working on music, they remain excited by the process. While Palladino and Mills clearly love discovering new sounds and creating new tracks, it's also clear they just like to hang out and make music together.
Pino Palladino + Blake Mills + Sam Gendel - Man From Molise (Live)
In December 2020, Pino Palladino, Blake Mills, and saxist Sam Gendel got together at L.A.'s historic Sound City Studios to create live versions of songs from Notes with Attachments. "Man From Molise," from that session, is more subdued than the version on the album, but illustrates some of what each of these musicians brings to the table. Check out Palladino's lead melody starting around 30 seconds, which lasts until he introduces the repeating figure at 1:40 and uplifts the song's simmering 7/4 groove as it supports Mills' soulful lead.
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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.
