Customer Reviews

Body Talk

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For me THE GEORGE BENSON GUITAR ALBUM. Powerful supple guitar lines. George shows his chops on this one. Playing with a very fat tone, George improvises inventively in every piece, Jack De Johnette, Ron Carter, Harold Mabern, Mobutu and a very very young Earl Klugh rounds out the line up along with a horn section. The title track and "Top of the World" are the best pieces on this album. On "Top of the World" George really shows his strong jazz sensibilities. Supple liquid guitar lines darting in and out and around Pee Ellis' arrangement. It rolls, floats This along with "Beyond the Blue Horizon" are must-haves.

THIS IS AN EARLY-MID 1970'S GEORGE BENSON RELEASE ON CTI RECORDS, BEFORE HE RECEIVED INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM FOR THE MUCH MORE MAINSTREAM AND COMMERCIAL WORK "BREEZIN". THIS IS BY FAR BY A VERY WIDE MARGIN HIS BEST ALBUM. AND EQUAL ACCLAIM ON THIS ALBUM GOES TO A THEN-VERY-YOUNG EARL KLUGH, WHO PLAYS SOME TRULY AMAZING RHYTHM GUITAR TO BACK UP GEORGE ON THIS ALBUM. IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET ONE GEORGE BENSON CD, THIS IS IT, HANDS DOWN. NOTHING HE DID BEFORE OR AFTER COMES CLOSE. NOT ONE BAD CUT.........

George Benson is yet another one of those musicians who didn't achieve widespread popular acclaim until after his best work was behind him. A pity, truly, since he bravely stepped into the big shoes left behind by Wes Montgomery and gave jazz fans a new guitar master to revere. With Body Talk, George Benson and CTI gave the jazz world yet another winner.
Perhaps the best reason for Benson's early failure to catch on with the public beyond the hard-core jazz connoisseur is given in the liner notes to Body Talk. These state that Benson was a restless young player who never wanted his next album to sound like his last, and until he went "mainstream" and finally achieved overwhelming popularity, they mostly did not. A lot of music listeners like a reassuring continuity in an artist's work. As for me, I don't care as long as the artist gives me some great tunes to enjoy.
There are several aspects of Body Talk which make it an important release. First, Benson starts to come into his own as a composer. Top of the World is a first rate piece of funky jazz. Secondly, he has brought in Earl Klugh to play guitar in counterpoint to his manic fretwork. Klugh built the foundation with Benson on which he was later to launch his own successful solo career.
I enjoy the entire album, but am especially enamored of Plum and the aforementioned Top of the World. Though Body Talk does not reach the five-star heights of Good King Bad or White Rabbit, it is still a recording that should be in every George Benson fan's collection. My only negative comment on it is that at a mere 46 or so minutes, it is far too short. But still, that is 46 minutes of great horns, great piano, great guitar, great MUSIC. Order this today!

George Benson is probably my favorite jazz guitar players,and one of my Top 5 favorite guitar players of all time. He's able to do something that many guitar players aspire to. Inspired by Wes Montgomery he's able to blend supple fingering,fast paced theatrics,strong technique and a great twangu sense of groove all at the same time. His playing on solo guitar is amazing enough. But with musicians of his equal,the effect is absolutely amazing! And here he gets it four fold. Along for the ride on this one are legendary Miles Davis alumni Ron Carter,Jack DeJonette along with Mobutu on percussion and the young man more or less being trained as Benson's contemporary;Earl Klugh. This one/two guitar punch and already legendary rhythm section created a mixture of slickly played and spare sounding jazz/funk music that is every bit as supple and compositionally strong as Benson himself. That says much since Benson has soooo many first class records from this era. But this for sure is one of the strongest.

Most of the songs are Benson compositions or co-compositions. And all are extended numbers in excess of seven-eight minutes a piece. "Dance" starts out the affair with the ideal mix of jazz and funk,with plenty of that great stop/start style to boot. Next up is the jazzy shuffle interpretation of Donny Hathaway's "When Love Has Grown". Followed by the similarly styled original "Plum" these numbers both find Benson improvising melodically with all the sassiness,blues,funk and emotion we're accustomed to getting from him. The title song,which gets a great alternate take/revisit as a bonus track here of course is the highlite. It's nine minutes of fast paced,horn driven funk with some hard edged improvising riffs from Benson has more than icing on the cake. "Top Of The World" gets busy with the same kind of flavor as the title track,only on the slower end and prominantly showcasing Harold Madern's rhodes electric piano solos.

There's something about 1973-74 that kind of typified that "jazz-funk" sound almost in the stereotypical sense. Trouble with the whole jazz-funk subgenre is that it really doesn't HAVE a steretype per se. Being it's jazz based it's very elastic generally. But there are certain sound elements. Those steady polyrhythms,the ever present fender rhodes piano and if available a great bass/guitar soloist and/or duo to boot. And this really pulls that all together for Benson. Along with a few other albums of this period it helped to create the funk-jazz sound of that era. At the time I don't think Benson or any of the musicans involved knew they were helping to create a certain musical history that would resonate both into smooth jazz and a higher (and more significant degree) neo/retro soul. Being this is an album I've long been curious about for years-probably in some ways due to that the simple cover art reminds me of my own photography in a narcissistic sort of way (just kidding on the last part of that) listening to it now makes me wonder why I didn't have this CD sooner! While considering the great bonus take of the title song....I think this was the right time.

Although not as exciting as the excellent "Beyond the Blue Horizon", this is still a good example of Benson's pre-vocal, jazz guitar playing. The title song is the best on the album, and is great sit-in-front-of-the-fire-lovemaking music.

This used to be one of my favorites. For whatever reason, the CD is not the same as the LP. The instrumentation is different, some numbers have been shortened, and some have been lengthened. Some of his best riffs are missing. I don't enjoy it as much as the LP version.

This is where I would draw the line. I love every cd George Benson put out before this cd. He was a jazz guitar god in every way, and his early cd's are mostly instrumental jazz classics. But I think this cd marks the beginning of his starting to go Pop. I don't blame him for doing it; he sings beatifully too. But I like the straight jazz guitar stuff he did before this cd came out.

While this may be a bit too "pop" for some, there's no denying the outstanding playing by Benson on this CD. The album would be better served without the horns, but that's a minor quibble. For those who are interested in jazz guitar, it's a worthy addition to your collection.