What sets Benny Green apart from many jazz pianists today is that he plays with his heart. By this, I don't mean soul. Most jazz pianists play with soul. It comes with the territory. With Benny, you can hear his emotions through his fingers. There's crying in there, bliss, melancholy, elation and wistfulness. On his new album, Solo (Sunnyside), we hear the entire range on 11 smartly chosen songs.
Benny's gift is the product of an early start and seasoning acquired from multiple recording dates and tours with jazz legends and a special friendship with Oscar Peterson, with whom he collaborated on a duet album in 1998. The legends include Art Blakey, Ray Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Betty Carter, Clark Terry, Milt Jackson and Arnett Cobb. He came up taking piano lessons in Berkeley, Ca., and by high school he had a weekly gig at Yoshi's. Benny also credits his Bay Area teachers—Ed Kelly, Smith Dobson, Bill Bell, and Dick Whittington. He also had great teachers in New York such as Walter Bishop Jr. and Walter Davis Jr. The secrets of the music's feel were then passed on to him, which Benny then made his own.
On Solo—recorded in Oakland, Ca., in 2022—Benny told me he selected songs composed by his favorite pianists. He takes on terrific jazz compositions, many of which are off the beaten trail. The album features James Williams' Soulful Mr. Timmons, Cedar Walton's The Maestro, Horace Silver's Lonely Woman, Bobby Timmons's This Here, Thelonious Monk's Ruby, My Dear, Tommy Flanagan's Minor Mishap, McCoy Tyner's Sunset, Barry Harris's Rouge and Oscar Peterson's He Has Gone. Benny also includes two originals—Jackie McLean and Blue Drew, which Benny said is a "simple blues built off a very common phrase that's similar to That’s Your Red Wagon, with some double-stops in the right hand, phrased as a nod to the great pianist Kenny Drew."
The album's highlights for me are Lonely Woman, The Maestro, Rouge and He Has Gone. Benny is especially sublime on compositions taken at a saloon-song tempo. Like someone mid-mood absentmindedly stirring a glass of ice cubes or drawing a word in the sand with a big toe, Benny at this pace displays a special depth in rumination and adds poetry to the work rather than simply rendering it.
You also know instantly that Benny gets the composer's mood and emotional intent as he adds his own perspective. It's rare when a jazz pianist can elevate a song with such sensitivity and coloration and take it to a new level. Benny does so with a plush velvet feel and glorious technique. An album of enormous taste and intellect.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Benny Green's Solo (Sunnyside) here.
JazzWax clips: Here's Lonely Woman...
And here's Benny's Jackie McLean...
