George Benson Returns to His Jazz Roots

George Benson is the Nat King Cole of the 1980s. Like Cole, he earned fame as an instrumentalist before reaching world renown as a singer.

Now, just as Cole did late in his career, he has made an album that reminds the public of his origins. “Tenderly” (Warner Bros. 25907), in which the eminent jazz pianist McCoy Tyner plays a major role, entered the jazz chart Aug. 6 and has already leaped to the No. 1 spot.

The guitarist, whose vocal personality made a fortune for him, plays on almost every track; three are strictly instrumental and the title cut is a guitar solo.

“Even my pop fans like it,” he said, just before leaving for a week in Brazil. “They like the ballady things. My wife fell in love with ‘This Is All I Ask.’ But what knocked me out was that my mother’s favorite was ‘I Could Write a Book,’ which is strictly a jazz thing. And my stepfather, who taught me how to play ukulele and then guitar, starting when I was 9, now says that his faith in my playing is reaffirmed! He was always very helpful but sometimes very critical--told me I was playing too fast and he couldn’t follow me. But when he heard this album he said, ‘Boy, that’s what I call guitar playing!’ ”

Benson, who will appear at the Wiltern Theatre Sept. 22-25, using his regular sidemen and an orchestra, recalls that his collaboration with Tyner came about by sheer chance. “Last year, on my way to the Blue Note Club in New York, I was listening to a jazz program on the radio and they played a tune from an old Johnny Hartman album. When they said McCoy Tyner was the pianist on it, I said to myself, ‘He must have been a baby back then!’ But he was already musically mature.” (The album was made in 1963 with John Coltrane and Tyner, then 24, accompanying Hartman.)

An idea occurred to Benson. “I realized how well McCoy plays behind vocalists, and of course we’re both instrumentalists. I decided to get in touch with him. Our sons are close friends--they’re both together now. The next day, McCoy’s son was over at my house and I said ‘Get in touch with your pop and ask him if he’d like to make a record with me.’ His father called back from Europe and said he would.”

Aware that record companies, when confronted with noncommercial projects, react as if they have been asked to commit suicide, Benson went into a studio and produced the first five songs on his own. “The Japanese booked us as soon as word reached them that we were in the studio! Then George Wein got word of the record and set us up with a European tour.”

Having launched the idea, Benson got in touch his producer, Tommy Li Puma. “Tommy then contacted the record company and got them real excited. Even Mo Ostin, the chairman of the board at Warners, called and said, ‘George, this is a gutsy move, to do an album like that at this time in your career.’ ”

The three-week European tour lived up to everyone’s expectations. “We had a lot of fans who came because they’d heard my name, but many of them knew McCoy’s name and were curious to see what was going to happen.”

Coincidentally, Benson found himself involved in several other jazz partnerships. “I guest-starred with Dizzy Gillespie in Europe. Boy, was he packing them in! I like working with the old-timers because that’s really where I learned to play; in fact, when I was growing up, I always wanted to get into that bag. My first recorded attempts at that kind of music were for Columbia, which is why John Hammond liked me, I guess.” (The late John Hammond recorded Benson in a series of strictly instrumental small group sessions in 1966-67. “The George Benson Cookbook” is still available only in cassette form on CS9413.)

Japan, typically, offered Benson and Tyner the most wide-ranging chances to stretch out. “Over there, we had additional help from Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and Joe Henderson on saxophone. That exciting horn sound gave us even more of a jazz flavor,” Benson said.

In 1966, playing in the Newport Jazz Festival’s Guitar Workshop, Benson was hailed by Down Beat as “a young guitarist with roots in Charlie Christian and a wonderful beat.” The reference to Christian, who revolutionized jazz guitar in his 1939-40 recordings with Benny Goodman, came to mind again last June when Benson was teamed with Lionel Hampton in a Carnegie Hall concert, “Hamp and George Salute Benny.” “That was the greatest honor in the world,” he says, “sitting in for Charlie Christian and bringing back the tunes he and Benny and Lionel played back then.” (Benson played and recorded briefly with Goodman in the ‘70s.)

Despite the wealth and worldwide acclaim his singing has brought him, Benson (and again the parallel with Nat King Cole is clear) still wants to retain the respect of the musicians and jazz fans who were his original admirers. “It’s real nice,” he says, “to do an album like this new one and have some jazz people say appreciate things about you.”

Benson’s success seems to have mellowed him; part of the cause, or possibly the effect, may be his religious convictions.

“I’ve been a dedicated Jehovah’s Witness for 10 years,” he says, “and I studied the Bible long before that. I think I’ve changed my ways a little from my wild young days. I’m very careful in what I do; I’m no saint, but I do try to keep away from anything that will bring reproach on me. Religion has helped me escape some pitfalls--helped me, I like to think, become a better man.”