George Benson – The Most Awesome Jazz Music Guitar Performer Ever – Part 2
In 1961, jazz guitarist George Benson got his break by means of a surprising opportunity. Hammond organist Brother Jack McDuff was passing through with his trio minus the guitar Player. Benson was quickly recommended to fill in and he ended up subbing for the next 3 years while undergoing the most challenging phase of his jazz guitar music career. Though he had an exceptional sense of time and a very deep groove, his harmonic and melodic knowledge was lacking and he did not know how to read music! With McDuff’s continuous encouragement Benson studied hard and obtained the required skills. In the meantime he met jazz guitar music giants Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, and Wes Montgomery who would also go on to release collection books of jazz guitar tabs and jazz guitar tablatures. Wes became practically a mentor to the young, up and coming guitarist. Prestige Record Company took notice of his remarkable jazz guitar technique and in 1964 Benson recorded “The New Boss Guitar of George Benson With the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet”.
The enormous publicity and rave acclaim persuaded Benson to go it alone and he formed his own quartet in 1965. Alongside with a lot other jazz musicians of the time, the band scuffled in the club scene till Columbia Records talent scout extraordinaire John Hammond heard him and signed him to the major record label. Preferring to feature him as a vocalist throughout those trying times for jazz, Columbia had him sing several tunes on his two albums. In 1967, Benson left Columbia for Verve Records where he cut two albums.
Still looking for an emphathetic record label, in 1968 George Benson joined A&M Records where he became a stable mate with Wes Montgomery. Wes had interceded on his behalf with producer Herb Alpert and Benson ended up making 3 record albums for the new and promising record label. His producer was Creed Taylor, who had engineered Wes’s unsurpassed commercial success by getting him to play pop tunes with ear-pleasing octaves. A comparable path was taken with Benson to the same critical consternation which followed Wes Montgomery’s “sellout” and once Taylor split in 1970 to create his own CTI Record Company label, Benson was convinced to come along for the ride.
The idea of CTI Records was revolutionary! Rather than treating jazz as some esoteric art reserved for the jazz music elite, Taylor came at it with a pop sensibility. He got the finest young jazzmen around and had them perform standards, modern tunes and originals and sweetened the songs with orchestral backing tracks.Afterwards he wrapped the tunes in visually striking, glossy artwork on the album covers. The results were amazing. CTI Record Company sold ten times the amount of most previous jazz releases! Luckily for aspiring guitarists, George Benson has released a number of jazz guitar music tab books which feature many of his recorded guitar solos and instructional DVDs where he teaches his jazz guitar techniques as well as his harmonic concepts.
Peabody Conservatory trained guitarist Steven Herron helps guitar players become better guitarists. His company ChordMelody.com features an enormous selection of jazz guitar tablatures
as well as instructional DVDs by George Benson himself. Find out more and claim Steven’s popular free monthly guitar lesson e-course available at: =>
http://www.chordmelody.com/George-Benson.htm
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