George Benson Weekend in L.a.

George Benson - Weekend In L.A. (1977) {Warner Bros. 3139-2 rel 1999}
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© 1977, 1999 Warner Bros. Records Inc. | 3139-2
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Crossover Jazz / Quiet Storm / Guitar

Recording live at Los Angeles' Roxy club – then a showcase for many of the hottest acts in pop – was just the tonic that George Benson and his Breezin' band needed on this often jumping album. With unusually lively crowds (for a record-industry watering hole) shouting encouragement, the band gets deep into the four-on-the-floor funk and Benson digs in hard, his rhythmic instincts on guitar sharp as ever. The balance between vocals and instrumentals is about even – George's voice sounds more throaty and soul-oriented than before – and amid the new material, there is a revisit to a favored CTI-era instrumental, the lovely "Ode to a Kudu."

U-Nam makes one goal of Weekend in L.A.: A Tribute to George Benson clear: He wants to pay honor to the guitarist who served as a major musical influence. However, because U-Nam himself is an innovator steeped in R&B and hip-hop along with jazz, he is not content to make the kind of record that Benson might have dropped in 1980. U-Nam incorporates those genres into this work in the same manner that Benson moved further along the jazz-pop road that Wes Montgomery was starting down prior to his untimely death in 1968.

This particular Origina Album Classics release contains five albums issued by George Benson through the Warner Bros. label: Breezin' (1976), Weekend in L.A. (1977), Give Me the Night (1980), Tenderly (1989), and Big Boss Band (1990). This is a rather arbitrary assortment; Benson made several other significant albums during the span covered here, and the stylistic differences between the earliest and latest sets are stark.

This particular Original Album Classics release contains five albums issued by George Benson through the Warner Bros. label: Breezin' (1976), Weekend in L.A. (1977), Give Me the Night (1980), Tenderly (1989), and Big Boss Band (1990). This is a rather arbitrary assortment; Benson made several other significant albums during the span covered here, and the stylistic differences between the earliest and latest sets are stark…

The success of Weekend in L.A. no doubt prompted producer Tommy LiPuma and Warner Bros. to give George Benson another double album (now on one CD) - and this, like its three Warner predecessors, also went Top Ten. It is also, alas, slicker, more romantic in mood, and more bound by perceptions of formula than the others, fussed over in three different studios in earnest search of another hit single (the dance-tempo cover of L.T.D.'s "Love Ballad"). Most of the touring band, including Ronnie Foster, Ralph MacDonald and Phil Upchurch, is back, and Claus Ogerman's soft symphonic touch provides most of the backdrops, with Mike Mainieri supplying the orchestra on three tracks…