George Benson’s tribute to Villa-Lobos

At the end of November 1971, at the studios of sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. George Benson, only 28 years old, records his tenth personal album. Around him, only legends: the double bassist Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock on the electric keyboard, the flautist Hubert Laws or the singer and percussionist Airto Moreira. Together, they record a singular project thought up by an essential arranger of the American jazz scene. His name: Don Sebesky. It was he who had the idea of ​​bringing together all these musicians around this album named White Rabbit. A disc which, as its name suggests, opens with a Hispanic arrangement of the eponymous song by the rock group Jefferson Airplane.

Apart from composition El Mar by George Benson, the five tracks on the disc are all covers. Alongside this re-reading of the Jefferson Airplane song, there are also variations on the theme ofA Summer 42film music by Michel Legrand but also the cover of the song California Dreaming popularized by The Mama’s and The Papa’s.

So that’s all well and good, but maybe you have to say to yourself, where is the classic here? Well it happens right away with the last track on side A of the album. It all begins with an evocation of a steam train winding through a South American forest. We imagine the whistles of the train, the wheels starting to move, faster and faster, and then…

And then this sublime theme. As you can imagine listening to the guitar of George Benson and the voice of the Brazilian singer Airto Moreira, we are in Brazil. This theme was also composed by one of the greatest Brazilian composers, the one who brought Brazilian popular music into classical concert halls, do you have it?

Performed in a more traditional way by the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Isaac Karabtchevsky, you may have recognized the Second Bachiana Brasileira by Heitor Villa-Lobos. A memory of a baroque toccata entitled “Le train de Caipira” which, interpreted by George Benson, goes at full speed!

To my knowledge, The Little Train is the only title by George Benson entirely inspired by a classic work. An exercise which nevertheless succeeds for the guitarist since this disc, one of the rare ones where he does not pose on the cover, will earn him his first nomination for the Grammy Awards in 1972 in the category best jazz group!