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Marco Benevento & Friends, Sullivan Hall, New York, NY, 1/31/08 |
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Written by Mike Greenhaus
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Monday, 10 March 2008 |
Photo: Kevin Calabro
The Benevento-Russo Duo first made its name playing jazz gigs at New York’s Knitting Factory Tap Bar. And as much as those early collaborations were “shows,” they were also parties: excuses for all sorts of freaks to take a break from their regular lives and come together for a mid-week Indian summer. But The Benevento-Russo Duo has long since gone from being the soundtrack for a party to an actual band and gradually carved out its own niche in the blurry space where jazz, jam and indie meet.
Oddly enough, Marco Benevento’s burgeoning solo career has followed a similar blueprint: In the fall of 2006 the keyboardist hosted a loose, experimental residency, the following summer he released an album documenting that run and, in the months since, he’s molded the best moments from those discs into a new band (featuring Reed Mathis and Andrew Barr) complete with a solo album, Invisible Baby. Coinciding with the album’s release, Benevento also put together a monthly residency at Sullivan Hall, featuring collaborations with an eclectic mix of performers, including Billy Martin, Stanton Moore, Skerik, Kaki King, Sonya Kitchell and Steven Bernstein, as well as Joe Russo and the members of The Slip. The five-week stand culminated with the Invisible Baby release party which, like most nights of Benevento’s residency, fell squarely between a conventional concert and a chatty, scenester party. Accompanied by Barr and Mathis, Benevento’s first set was a more refined affair, featuring an almost complete reading of Invisible Baby, spiked with versions of My Morning Jacket’s “Golden” and Deerhoof’s “Twin Killers.” The trio stretched out during the second set, digging deeper in its improvisational roots and running through old Duo numbers like “Mephisto” and a reprise of “The Real Morning Party” (which served as the evening’s unofficial theme song). As the Thursday night crowd thinned out, opener Brad Barr jumped onstage, helping the group through open-ended covers like Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” that kept the party going well into early Friday morning.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 10 March 2008 )
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