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It’s kind of mind-blowing to learn that George Benson almost didn’t record “This Masquerade,” his biggest hit, which catapulted him to international stardom. When the jazz legend began compiling material for his landmark “Breezin’ ” album in 1976, it was suggested he cover the song composed by Leon Russell.
“I’d never heard of the song or Leon Russell,” Benson explains. “I wondered why the producer had sent it to me. He said, ‘What do you think about ‘This Masquerade,’ and I hadn’t even played it. I couldn’t find it, so he sent it again. One of the guys in my band came to my house with his wife and she heard me listening to the record. She said it was her favorite song. So I thought I better learn it because people like it. Then, at the last minute the sessions were going so good, Tommy LiPuma, the producer, said, ‘Maybe we don’t need a vocal on the album.’ I said, wait a minute it, you made me go through all the trouble of learning this tune, let’s do it at least one time. So we did one take, and that’s the one and only take of ‘This Masquerade.’ “
The first song in music history to achieve the No. 1 position on the jazz, pop and R&B charts, “This Masquerade” earned Benson a Grammy Award for Record of the Year and helped make “Breezin’ ” the best-selling jazz album of all time.
“To most people, the ‘Breezin” album came out of nowhere,” Benson continues. “Who the heck is this guy? But I was an established artist who had already reached the No. 1 spot in jazz polls. I figured we’d sell two or three hundred thousand records, but it went gold in six weeks and then platinum. All of sudden, I had money in my pocket and I’m buying a Mercedes Benz and I moved to Maui. It was an incredible transition.”
One of the greatest jazz guitarists of our time and a superb soul/R&B vocalist, Benson will return to the island he loves, performing Tuesday in Castle Theater at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.
Having covered songs over the years by artists ranging from Miles Davis to Donny Hathaway and Charlie Parker to Stevie Wonder, on his most recent album project, Benson paid tribute to the great Nat King Cole.
“He inspired my whole career,” Benson says. “When I heard him sing, I said, when I grow up I want to be like that, because when I was coming up he was the star, with all those smash records. When I was a kid, I used to win singing contests singing his songs. Way later in life, he was still my favorite.”
Along with lush, orchestrated tunes like “Walking My Baby Back Home” and “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” “Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole” includes a terrific version of “Unforgettable,” featuring a striking trumpet solo by Wynton Marsalis.
“He was worried about his solo,” says Benson. “I said, Wynton, you couldn’t play a bad solo if you tried. I said what I wanted is what you gave me. You gave me a New Orleans feel and you didn’t jazz it up to the degree where you couldn’t enjoy it. He made it interesting with some highlights and curved notes.”
The album opens with an excerpt of “Little Georgie Benson,” singing Cole’s “Mona Lisa” at the age of 8 years old.
“My mother found that tape, she saved it all those years,” he marvels. “My producer heard it and said, ‘This is going on the album.’ We put it in there and everybody likes it.”
Way before he became established as a brilliant jazz guitarist, Benson began his professional life as a singer. “When I was Little Georgie Benson, I had my own radio show and made my first record at 10 years old,” he explains. “I worked at a nightclub when I was 7. I was a singer who played ukulele with a little strumming on the guitar. By the time I was 17, I was one of the few guitar players in my town and I was the cat they called all the time for jam sessions.”
Releasing one critically acclaimed album after another during the 1960s, in 1970 this versatile virtuoso released a remarkable cover of the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album – “The Other Side of Abbey Road” – transforming songs like “Oh Darling” into a swinging blues and adding a deep jazz funk groove to “Come Together.”
“Producer Creed Taylor called me in one day and said, ‘Take this album and see if there’s anything you like,’ ” he recalls. “It was the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road.’ The next day, I came back and said everything on there is good, meaning pick one (song) and we’ll do it. He said, ‘Great, let’s do the whole album.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was not well-received by the jazz world, but it was classy and had some of the baddest musicians around New York on it. It didn’t sell at first, but when ‘Breezin” came out, people went back to what I had done, and ‘The Other Side of Abbey Road’ and the ‘White Rabbit’ album gave legs to my pop career.”
So did he ever hear from the Beatles what they thought about it?
“I didn’t know them then, but when it came out, they sent messages, how they loved what I did with their music,” he says. “I was very proud of that, because I thought maybe I had destroyed their songs. We became friends by proxy. Finally, I did a TV show in England called ‘Top of the Pops,’ and Paul McCartney teases me about that. He tells people, ‘I used to open for George Benson. I opened on ‘Top of the Pops’ and he closed the show.’ “
Once Benson became widely known, he continued to release gold- and platinum-selling recordings, such as “Give Me the Night,” “Weekend in L.A.” and “20/20,” that showcased his dazzling technical mastery and the fluidity and emotional range of his guitar playing. And always, he would find a tight groove.
“Coming up, all I heard were records that swung hard,” he notes. “Like Count Basie and the king of swing Benny Goodman, and Charlie Christian showed how to put those notes in the middle and make it move along. When I tackle a song, it always has to have some feeling and movement to it.”
Next up, we’ll hear him among the leading artists collaborating with Van Morrison on the Irish legend’s forthcoming album, “Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue,” co-produced by Maui’s Bob Rock. “I recorded a duet on ‘Higher Than the World’ with one of my favorite artist’s in the business,” he reports. “We had a ball.”
It’s been a few years since this great musician played on Maui. He says he can’t wait to get here. “It represents a great part of my life, a very satisfactory part of my life. I didn’t know it could be so good until I moved to Kaanapali. I miss all that.”
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Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai and pianist/composer Peter Kater will perform together in concert Sunday at the MACC.
A 10-time Grammy Award nominee, Kater is a multi-platinum-selling pianist/composer who has released more than 50 recordings and soundtracks since his debut in 1983. Living on Maui for the last few years, Kater has scored more than 100 TV and film productions and is a recipient of an Environment Leadership Award from the United Nations.
Among his film work, the soundtrack of the documentary “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” included some tracks from the album “Migration,” recorded with Nakai. The pianist and flutist have collaborated on a number of recordings including “Through Windows & Walls,” “Honorable Sky” and “Natives.” Last year, they released “Ritual,” joined by legendary saxophonist/oboist Paul McCandless and cellist Jaques Morelenbaum.
” ‘Ritual’ is a thing of beauty, flowing from one track to the other, anchored by Nakai’s haunting, lilting flute and Kater’s superbly nuanced piano,” praised a Wind and Wire review.
Of Navajo-Ute heritage, Nakai is the world’s premier performer of the Native American flute. He began his musical studies on the trumpet but changed focus when he was given a traditional cedar flute as a gift and challenged to master it. Nakai’s first album, “Changes,” was released in 1983, and since then, he has released around 40 albums, with total sales of more than 4 million, including his platinum-selling CD “Canyon Trilogy.”
In 2005, he recorded “Our Beloved Land” with Keola Beamer, blending Hawaiian and Native American cultural influences.
* Peter Kater and R. Carlos Nakai will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Castle Theater. Tickets are $25, $35 and $45.
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Hula Grill’s free “First Sunday Music Series” from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. this weekend will feature Grammy-winning falsetto master Uncle Richard Ho’opi’i, CJ “Boom” Helekahi and Benny Uyetake.
Sunday’s show will also celebrate the release of Max Angel’s “Touch the Sky” CD. He was the 2014 winner of the Hula Grill ukulele youth contest.