There are few jazz guitarists I like, namely Sonny Sharrock and George Benson. Benson is just so talented and so incredibly versitile, playing jazz, funk, rock, pop, covering 'Take Five' (on Bad Benson) with a slightly psychedelic and cooled out vibe and then covering 'Greatest Love of All' (on Live in LA) with total sincerity and focus. It's hard to nail down jusy why I like George Benson so much, but this album pulls together all the stuff I love about his playing.
Bad Benson came out in 1974, right in the middle of CTI's most fruitful period, one year after Deodado's Prelude reached #3 on the Billboard Top 40. One of the best things about CTI was that the session players were all top notch always, with guys like Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter frequently playing supporting roles. It's all over the place in terms of types of songs - love ballard soaked with 1970's strings right out of a disco soundtrack on track 2, side 1 'Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams' to smoothed-out Latin soul jazz on 'My Latin Brother' to bitchin' funk jazz on 'Full Compass' - which happens to be my favorite track.
He also sets the tone perfectly for the record with the cut 1/side 1 track of 'Take Five', a 1970's take on a 1950's West Coast cool jazz classic. It's got a lot of edge and sharp beats, more akin to free jazz than cool jazz and its punctuated by blistering solos by Benson which just leave you slack jawed.
George Benson has so much talent and lack of pretension that he seems to give each track he plays all his talent on tap, not playing favorites. Even live he was fun and selfless, often smiling through whole sets, chilling and killing it on guitar.
Good thing about CTI recordings from this time is that they were pretty popular so even your high end jazz shops should have these LP's for 2-3 dollars and pretty much anything by Benson, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard (including 1970's Red Clay - a CTI masterwork) and Milt Jackson being essentials in any good collection. Bought for $3 at Dusty Groove in excellent shape and on my turntable a lot on Sunday mornings while I'm drinking coffee and chilling hard.
