Schedule
Friday, August 9, 2024 at 10 pm (Jazz After Dark | Sheridan Opera House)
Saturday, August 10, 2024 from 6:10-7:20 pm (Main Stage)
Marco Benevento is a bender of time and space, and certainly, of musical conventions. The fairest assessment of his body of work and his approach to jazz would be to call it experimental. Have no fear, you more straightlaced types. Marco is a devotee of the rhythm, too, and on his 2022 solo release, Benevento, that inclination takes his sound to West Africa. In a nod to Paul McCartney’s first, post-Beatles solo album, simply called McCartney, Marco took to his home studio — Fred Short — with a raft of musical ideas for a hunker-down sesh in which he played every instrument, save for some percussion work with Mamadouba “Mimo” Camara. That collab, Benevento said, brought out “the whole West African psych element.” It’s a joyous excursion, layered with his trademark brilliant synthesizer and keyboard work, and even his kids’ vocals. “This record really acts as a psychedelic window into my studio and my brain,” Benevento remarked.
His latest on the Royal Potato Family label is Barn Burner, recorded live at his neighbor’s place, the late Levon Helm’s intimate venue in Woodstock, New York. In all his musical journeys — be it Benevento/Russo Duo, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead or his own solo work — this prolific genius’s set comes with a guarantee that your brain will be devoid of cobwebs once the final note fades into the cliffsides. May the experiments go ever onward.