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George Benson: Breezin'

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Warner Bros. Records
Released: 1976
Time:
 38:55
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): Tommy LiPuma
Rating: *****..... (5/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.georgebenson.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2010.04.15
Price in €: 2,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Breezin' (Womack) - 5:40
[2] This Masquerade (Russell) - 8:03
[3] Six to Four (Upchurch) - 5:06
[4] Affirmation (Feliciano) - 7:01
[5] So This Is Love? (Benson) - 7:03
[6] Lady (Foster) - 5:49

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


George Benson - Guitar, Vocals

Jorge Dalto - Piano, Clavinet
Ronnie Foster - Piano, Keyboards, Electric Piano, Moog Synthesizer
Phil Upchurch - Bass, Guitar, Rhythm Guitar
Ralph MacDonald - Percussion
Stanley Banks - Bass
Jorge Dalton - Keyboards
Harvey Mason Sr. - Drums

Claus Ogerman - Conductor

Tommy LiPuma - Producer
David McLees - Reissue Producer
Patrick Milligan - Reissue Producer
Al Schmitt - Engineer
Doug Sax - Mastering
Bill Inglot - Digitally Remastering
Claus Ogerman - Arranger
Al Young - Liner Notes
Ed Thrasher - Art Direction

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1976 LP Warner Bros. 2-3111
1991 CD Warner Bros. 2-3111
1991 CS Warner Bros. M5-3111
2007 CD WEA 25050
2008 CD Warner Music France 75369
2009 CD Warner Bros. 13452

Recorded at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, California from January 6-8, 1976. Includes liner notes by Al Young and A. Scott Galloway.

Benson earned his reputation as a superior jazz guitarist through his partnership with soul/jazz organist Brother Jack McDuff. Several solo albums for the CTI label ensued before a switch to the giant Warner Brothers resulted in extraordinary chart success with this release. Benson's remake of the title track, originally a hit for fellow guitarist Gabor Szabo, set the tone for the entire set wherein mellifluous funkunderscores the artist's sweet voice and soft-touch technique. Like Nat 'King' Cole before him, Benson left jazz to court a wider audience and with Breezin' he did so with considerable aplomb.



All of a sudden, George Benson became a pop superstar with this album, thanks to its least representative track. Most of Breezin' is a softer-focused variation of Benson's R&B/jazz-flavored CTI work, his guitar as assured and fluid as ever with Claus Ogerman providing the suave orchestral backdrops and his crack then-working band (including Ronnie Foster on keyboards and sparkplug Phil Upchurch on rhythm guitar) pumping up the funk element. Yet it is the sole vocal track (his first in many years), Leon Russell's "This Masquerade" -- where George unveiled his new trademark, scatting along with a single-string guitar solo -- that reached number ten on the pop singles chart and drove the album all the way to number one on the pop (!) LP chart. The attractive title track also became a minor hit single, although Gabor Szabo's 1971 recording with composer Bobby Womack is even more fetching. In the greater scheme of Benson's career, Breezin' is really not so much a breakthrough as it is a transition album; the guitar is still the core of his identity.

Richard S. Ginell - All Music Guide



Benson is a double threat, a brilliant guitarist who is also a gifted vocalist. Although he enjoyed success throughout the '60s and '70s, Benson really broke through as a mainstream pop artist in 1976, when he released the platinum-selling BREEZIN'. The gorgeous ballad "This Masquerade" was the big hit, but the lively title track and the swinging "Six to Four" will be just as familiar to smooth-jazz fans. The album also includes the gently grooving "Affirmation" and two lovely, string-accented tunes, "So This Is Love" and "Lady." BREEZIN' is a particular milestone for an artist who continues to be one of music's true giants.

Lucy Tauss, Barnes & Noble



Before this album was released in 1976, George Benson was known largely for his Wes Montgomery/Charlie Christian-inspired licks and his stints with Jack McDuff and Miles Davis. Breezin' was a million-selling, Grammy Award-winning LP and made Benson an "overnight" star. The reasons for that success were Tommy LiPuma's topnotch production, Claus Ogerman's ethereal arrangements, and Benson's soulful vocals on Leon Russell's ballad "This Masquerade." Backed by Fourplay drummer Harvey Mason, master percussionist Ralph MacDonald, bassist Stanley Banks, rhythm guitarist Phil Upchurch, and keyboardists Ronnie Scott and Jorge Dalto, Benson and the crew laid down the moods and grooves we now call "contemporary jazz." From the soft-rock of "Six to Four," the midtempo backbeat of the title track, and the Latin-tinged tunes "Affirmation," "So This Is Love?" and "Lady," Benson's fleet-fingered Ibanez guitar lines make the rare leap from straight-ahead to the mainstream. Added to the CD reissue are three bonus tracks not on the LP: a snappy and soulful rendition of "Down Here on the Ground," from the movie Cool Hand Luke, a Bob James-like funk number "Shark Bite," and the single-edit version of "This Masquerade." George Benson was never the same after this record and neither was jazz.

Eugene Holley, Jr. - Amazon.com



Though purists may accuse this respected jazz guitarist of having sold out by scoring with a platinum album of mood music, none could deny that Breezin' contains superior mood music. Its six medium-length cuts are extended song arrangements which don't allow daring improvisation yet show off Benson's flawless technique. All sound pretty much the same — vaguely wistful and vaguely Latin American — due to the grafting of gossamer strings onto quietly cooking rhythm and instrumental tracks. But this homogenization is a big step up from "Theme from 'A Summer Place,'" the refrain of which is heard in Bobby Womack's title cut. Leon Russell's "This Masquerade," the only cut on which Benson sings, features fine scatting on top of the guitar part and an interpretation that pleasantly apes Stevie Wonder. If the success of Breezin' tells us very little about the state of jazz, it indicates a great deal about present influences on the popular mainstream. Here is a comfortable but sophisticated jazz, R&B and MOR blend, whose light romantic style ultimately derives from and dilutes the spirit of Stevie Wonder's ballads.

STEPHEN HOLDEN - RS 225 (Nov 4, 1976)
RollingStone.com
 

 L y r i c s


Instrumental album.

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