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But from the flute overture that opens the track to the lightly funky rhythm and crisp, lilting melody, it’s guaranteed to lighten your mood, no small achievement in these tense times. Originally recorded by Gabor Szabo, Bobby Womack’s “Breezin’”was the epitome of easy listening, Benson’s version adding gentle figures including a nod to “Theme from a Summer Place,” a defining muzak melody. With its melancholy croon, “Masquerade” was the moody track to plug, but the opener set the scene with an all-timer that perfectly suited the easy-going title. The yellow background and parallel lines on the cover suggest a school notebook, apt since the album turned out to be a template for a lucrative pop career. What good would it do him to cover a song that had already been recorded by the Carpenters and Helen Reddy? After a couple of days of rehearsals, Benson and his group got it down in a few takes, and with a little engineering help to get Benson‘s vocal the way he heard it in his head, and though he didn’t expect anything to come of it, “This Masquerade” introduced the airwaves to a voice that would soon be everywhere.īreezin’ was Benson’s 15th album as a leader. And Benson wasn’t too keen on the Leon Russell song that producer Tommy LiPuma kept pushing on him. Records.Īccording to Benson’s 2014 memoir, he was skeptical when WEA exec Bob Krasnow approached him for a major league deal. Still, as successful as his CTI records were, he entered a whole new level with his debut for Warner Bros. By the ‘70s, Benson had moderate commercial success with the slick fusion of the CTI label his 1974 album Bad Benson is one of the highlights of this era, with an inspired version of the Paul Desmond standard “Take Five.” Even at his most inventive, Benson never went outside-Robert Christgau complained in a pithy dismissive review of the 1977 album In Flight, “Turn those amps up!” But even in a middle-of-the-road jazz tradition, Benson had a defining tone and recognizable swing.
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The Pittsburgh-born guitarist began his professional career as a sideman for soul jazz organist Jack McDuff in the early ‘60s, when Benson was just 19.
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And in the case of Breezin, this experience, in the vinyl format for which it was made, is as accessible as your local thrift store, where Benson’s albums are in generous supply. In each of these cases, it’s like the scales fell off one’s ears. It can also be said of a listener who cut their jazz teeth on shredders like Sonny Sharrock and Pete Cosey, but after long dismissing Top 40, learned to appreciate the simple pleasures of a perfect pop song.
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The same might be said of jazz guitarist George Benson’s pivot to pop music with his 1976 album Breezin’, a multi-platinum seller that became one of the best-selling jazz records in chart history. “It was less a shift and more akin to a conversion.” That’s how author Haruki Murakami, in his 2017 novel Killing Commendatore, describes an aging Japanese artist’s unexpected development from young modern artist to elderly traditionalist.