(#322: 26 October
1985, 1 week; 9 November 1985, 1 week)
Track listing:
Give Me The Night/Lady Love Me (One More Time)/Love X Love/New Day/Feel Like
Making Love/20-20/Never Give Up On A Good Thing/Inside Love (So Personal)/No
One Emotion/In Your Eyes/Turn Your Love Around/The Greatest Love Of All
Last weekend on BBC Four I watched Jon Brewer’s
documentary Nat King Cole: Afraid Of The Dark. It was an intriguing
and somewhat unsettling watch. There is unlikely to be a more definitive or comprehensive
Cole study; practically all of his surviving family, friends, associates and
peers are interviewed – including his widow, Maria Cole, who lived on until
July 2012, less than a month short of ninety - and much long unseen archive
material was incorporated, including footage from Cole’s sixties television
shows.
The reason why the documentary was unsettling to watch
was the underlying question of whether, over the nearly half-century since Cole
died, things had really got any better for mainstream black entertainers. Cole
was the first black performer to get his own TV series, and his fame did not
preclude repeated, nauseating incidences of ingrained racism from others who
really ought to have known better.
As I said, many of his musical peers get a chance to
speak in the documentary (including archival interviews with Frank Sinatra and
Oscar Peterson), and amongst their number – Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, Buddy
Greco, Johnny Mathis, Nancy Wilson – the most striking interviewee was George
Benson, a man with fair claim to being heir to Cole’s mantle, having similarly
crossed over from respected jazz musician status to mainstream stardom. Benson
is now seventy-one, but throughout his comments there still lay a politely
buried rage. More than once, Benson emphasised the importance and unprecedented
nature of what Cole had achieved. In relation to his crossover to easy
listening territory, Benson remarked on how Cole’s style and approach had made
him – and, by extension, his people – “easy to accept.”
It is an approach which Benson has been careful to
maintain throughout his career, which almost exactly coincides with, and leads
on from, Cole’s death. He is from Pittsburgh, and if I say that other jazz
musicians of note from that city include Erroll Garner, Earl Hines, Art Blakey,
Ahmad Jamal, Roy Eldridge, Maxine Sullivan, Paul Chambers, Kenny Clarke, Geri
Allen, Billy Eckstine and, by extension, Billy Strayhorn (who actually came from
Dayton, Ohio, but grew up partly in Pittsburgh and partly in Hillsborough,
North Carolina) then you may discern a common purpose; none of these musicians
has ever shouted out their newness or radicalism, but instead prefer to propose
an unassuming but determined alternative to the musical norm.
As a jazz guitarist, Benson is, stylistically, a relative
conservative; his fingering technique was apparently inspired by Django
Reinhardt, his simultaneous soloing and vocal scatting derive from Slam
Stewart, and there is always the feeling in his work that Grant Green’s Idle Moments was about as far as the
electric guitar should dare to go (this is, incidentally, no idle comparison;
Benson was a great friend and admirer of Green, and uses a not dissimilar
style, turning down the treble and bass
controls on his amplifier to zero and turning the mid-range control up to ten,
thus highlighting a certain rhythmic bite in his playing. In addition it should
be noted that Green, beaten down by a history of heroin addiction, heart
problems and overwork, suffered a fatal heart attack at the end of January
1979, not yet forty-four, on his way to a gig at Benson’s Breezin’ Lounge in
New York).
Most of Benson’s early recordings are unfussy,
meat-and-potatoes soul-jazz affairs; he worked for some time with the organist
Jack McDuff (who also appeared on Benson’s debut The New Boss Guitar), and records issued under his own name – e.g. It’s Uptown With The George Benson Quartet
and The George Benson Cookbook (both
1966) – were generally straight-ahead fare, featuring one Dr Lonnie
Smith (not to be confused with Lonnie Liston Smith) at the organ.
But by early 1968 he was invited to guest on Miles Davis’
Miles In The Sky album – a record
whose title was inspired by “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” – and appears on
the twelve-and-a-half minute-long “Paraphernalia.” This was a Wayne Shorter
composition, and sounds it; a knotty harmonic maze repeatedly thrown
off-balance by Tony Williams’ seismic, onomatopoeic drum rumbles. Miles digs in
and concentrates; Shorter is as inventive and elusive as ever, soloing with the
faintly distracted air of a professional assassin attempting to complete a
crossword puzzle; Herbie Hancock is in his “guess which chord I’m going to be
playing next” mood; while Williams plays so obscurely away from the beat that it’s
hard to determine whether the beat remains (N.B.: this is a good thing).
In this environment, the casual listener might be
forgiven for mistaking Benson for a lost tourist who’s turned up in the wrong departure
lounge. He comps, mostly rhythmically, throughout and his solo space is
relatively limited and restrained (note how, when Hancock launches into his solo, Ron Carter’s bass immediately
bends with and follows the pianist, which does not happen at all with the
guitarist). However, more attentive listening will reveal that Benson is
actually the anchor holding the entire performance together. His tone and foot
pedal control are strangely prescient of what Derek Bailey would do on the Tony
Oxley Quintet’s “Stone Garden” the following year, but unlike Bailey, he is
there to bring all of the stray elements flying around him together.
As the sixties turned into the seventies, Benson moved on
to Verve records, then A&M, and thence to Creed Taylor’s CTI, reaching
steadily further into the mainstream. It is reasonable to say that much of
Benson’s CTI work is Formica-pleasant but unthreatening; his The Other Side Of Abbey Road is nowhere
near as radical a reconstruction as those offered by Booker T and the MGs or
the Mike Westbrook Band, and his “White Rabbit” is the equivalent of Wes
Montgomery having a go at “A Day In The Life.” Perhaps his most telling work of
this period was his gutsy and moderately exploratory contributions to the only
album by the Harlem Underground Band, recorded for Paul Winley and including
the much-sampled “Smokin’ Cheeba Cheeba,” although his first British hit
single, 1975’s “Supership” was released on CTI, and still credited to George “Bad”
Benson.
Thereafter Benson moved to Warner Brothers and became a
superstar; it is telling that, unlike Cole, he did not end up in a situation
where he had to choose between being a singer and being an instrumentalist;
even on mid-eighties affairs like “20/20” the scat unisons remain intact. And
so the fork in the road which would eventually lead to The Love Songs making number one was reached.
But things like “Breezin’,” “Nature Boy,” “This
Masquerade,” “On Broadway” and even 1979’s “Love Ballad” do not make it to this
compilation; of its dozen songs, only one dates from the seventies. A more
extensive anthology such as Music Club Deluxe’s 2011 2-CD set The Essential Collection includes all of
this material and may serve as a better entry point for neophytes. The Love Songs was intended for an “export”
market and was only released in Britain, Holland, Germany and Japan. Moreover,
it was the final number one album to be released by K-Tel, thus bringing a
thirteen-year reign to a relatively subdued close.
So the compilation centres on eighties audiences’ notions
of George Benson as a pleasing and acceptable MoR-soul-jazz performer. In the
context of the autumn of 1985 it is worth remembering what “soul music” had
become. The most prominent steps forward appeared to have been taken by two
albums; Luther Vandross’ The Night I Fell
In Love (arranged and produced by Marcus Miller, who would render a similar
service the following year on Miles’ Tutu),
and the eponymous debut album by Alexander O’Neal (essentially the work of Jam
and Lewis). Both took recognised soul man tropes and advanced them; in Vandross’
case discreetly and elegantly, in O’Neal’s case, alternatively aggressively and
elegiacally. Of the old school, Bobby Womack (on whose Poet II album Benson had appeared) impressed with the
fury-under-a-lake-of-serenity of So Many
Rivers, Al Green’s Going Away was
his best and most purposeful record since The
Belle Album, and Shirley Brown’s magnificently angry Intimate Storm was something more than either, while, on the
spiritual side, Steve Arrington’s Dancing
In The Key Of Life was a spaceship gospel sermon. Womack and Womack’s Radio M.U.S.I.C. Man was a more than
worthy second album, including a heartstopping rendition of “Here Comes The
Sun.”
Set against all of this, Benson can come across as
slightly old-fashioned, but in a way that makes it work as an attribute rather
than a distraction. Nowhere better did he achieve this than with Quincy Jones:
1980’s Give Me The Night – Off The Wall grown up and enrolled at
Berklee – whose two hits are repeated here. As with other artists, Rod
Temperton appears to set off something in Benson that otherwise might have gone
unreported; hence the dopey naivety of world-peace-via-dance that is “Give Me The
Night” is turned into a declaration of authority. “Love X Love” is also
sublime; both songs benefit from Jones’ ceaselessly inventive producing and
arranging - the way, for instance, that Patti Austin & co’s
200-miles-from-the-microphone echoes of backing vocals overlap each other to tectonic
shift levels worthy of disco Steve Reich. Meanwhile, Benson plays much as he
had done on “Paraphernalia,” holding this parallel landscape together.
He never quite hit those heights again; the pair of 1981
songs recorded for The George Benson
Collection (has all the seventies stuff, but 45 edits only) with various
people from Toto, “Turn Your Love Around”
and “Never Give Up On A Good Thing,” do not hold the same magic but are both
fine pop singles in their own right. In this environment, however, the songs
suggest a scenario of Benson as a kind of agony uncle with a rather stern moral
rectitude. Both examine the problems of lovers from both perspectives and
arrive at the conclusion that it’s worth working at them to overcome them
because what is there is so precious and important that it cannot be tossed
away.
Is this record therefore an update of Love Is The Thing, or a musical setting of
Erich Fromm’s The Art Of Love (on “In
Your Eyes,” Benson sings of “trying to write a love song with just a single
note”)? Throughout these songs, Benson is very careful to distinguish between
everyday romantic love and a greater,
more universally encompassing songs; in both “Never Give Up” and “In Your Eyes,”
the importance of looking at and understanding love is made key. But a sense of
purpose is certainly made evident; appreciate what you have, and just because
things aren’t working out so well right now doesn’t mean that you mustn’t work
on the problems and retain your essential faith; don’t worry, things will get
better.
Four songs appear from 1983’s In Your Eyes, and as great a producer as Arif Mardin was, he wasn’t
quite Quincy Jones, and so “Lady Love Me” and the title song drift harmlessly
by, enough that either would fit snugly into Chinnery’s early eighties notion
of Radio 1 as offering comforting muzak to young couples driving, on their way
from the theatre, or to the restaurant. His “Feel Like Making Love” does show a
good deal more vivacity and enthusiasm, however, and one can tell from its accompanying
geometric rhythm arrangements that Mardin is already making other plans.
Once we get to 1985, however, we are in 1985, so to
speak, and so “20/20” – late 1984, but who’s counting? - is hackwork which
doesn’t deserve the dignity Benson bestows upon it, while “No One Emotion” is
ruined by some horridly squidgy rock guitar (not played by Benson).
But 1985 also gives us “New Day,” composed by Womack and
Womack, both of whom are very evident in the song’s background – and suddenly,
all of the anger harboured over the previous two decades surfaces as a
melancholy lament. The “it makes me
wonder” refrain may come from “Stairway To Heaven” but the song’s message is
far closer to There’s A Riot Goin’ On;
“Where is so much of the beauty that we see?” Benson asks in dignified despair.
“Now I'm wondering if it's all been in a dream/Times, they go from bad to
worse/Seems it's all been rehearsed/We were standing here acting out this scene.”
In other words, have things really got better for black performers – or, for
that matter, black people as a whole –
in the three decades since the Klan burned the “N” word into Cole’s Hancock
Park lawn? The refrain of “And that new day’s coming soon” dissolves into
aerated Afrofuturist ethereality, voices and rhythms slipping out of comprehension
and consciousness; as with Vandross’ “The Other Side Of The World,” the song
absorbs itself, becomes its own planet, could wander through space forever. Or
was Terry Callier’s “Love Theme From Spartacus”
already on premature radar?
There is also the fourth single from In Your Eyes – a club smash, it really should have been the first –
“Inside Love (So Personal),” co-produced by Mardin and Kashif, which is quite,
quite brilliant, and not just for its use of such infrequent pop words as “topics”
and “intensity,” but also for a staggeringly adventurous musical template which
more or less sets the stage for Mardin (and Gartside)’s Scritti Politti. It is
another song to have love as its subject, but one feels, listening to this
compilation overall, that Benson is actually playing a very smart and
purposeful game – he knows exactly what he can get away with proposing.
I have left until last the record’s last song, its only
song from the seventies, and perhaps one of the most misunderstood of all pop
songs (not least, in the past, by myself). We need to get over the Bateman
notion of “The Greatest Love Of All” being the ultimate hymn to the ego, and
remember exactly why this song was written and the way in which Benson performs
it.
It was written for The
Greatest, a Muhammad Ali biopic in which the great man plays himself, with
a surprisingly effective Ernest Borgnine as Angelo Dundee; and knowing the
details of Ali’s life, it is reasonable to claim that this song, at the very
least from his perspective, is justified. Benson – in one of the record’s few
songs where he does not play guitar at all – sings, as he does elsewhere, in a
style very close to that of Donny Hathaway (with the odd nod to Mathis).
But there is no doubt that Benson means what he is
singing, or about his greater meaning. For “learning to love yourself” isn’t a
green flag to narcissism and is probably not about an individual person; why
else does the song linger on the notion of children being “the future” and the
importance of teaching them the right way to go, and why else does Benson sing
of failing to find any “heroes” – how could he, when Cole had been gone for
over a dozen years, or Coltrane for over a decade, or whatever/whoever?
In other words, Benson sings “The Greatest Love Of All”
as a message to his people, his race;
the celebrated Curtis Mayfield iron fist in benignly velvet glove technique. In
many ways, this song serves as a good bridge from the end of Hounds Of Love, wherein the protagonist
returns to the world and learns to love and relate to other people; but Benson
takes it one step further, addressing the need for his people to push for
something new and better to happen, and, as always, making the message easy to
accept. Some revolutionaries prefer persuading to shouting. This is not to say
that either notion is not valid. But The
Love Songs, in its own welcoming way, proposes changes much more
far-reaching than those of the Style Council; its subtle message is: well, the
war’s still on, and who’s to say we can’t still win it? At the time of “The
Greatest Love Of All”’s original release, Obama was sixteen. There was never any need to be afraid of the dark.
