Those brought up in the rich tradition of the jazz piano trio, a style that once flourished in the hands of Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson and Cecil Taylor, might be amazed at where 30-year-old New Yorker Marco Benevento has taken the keyboard/bass/drums format some 50 years later. When playing live, he sometimes uses indie-rock melodies by Deerhoof and My Morning Jacket as launch pads for his kaleidoscopic excursions. The all-original material on his solo debut finds Benevento (also of the Benevento/Russo Duo) at his piano, armed with effects boxes that give him everything from fuzz-drenched guitar to wheezing prog-rock organ. On the stripped-down “Record Book,” Benevento likes to stretch and restate a keyboard motif rather than improvise over a set of chord changes. It’s a more haunting soundtrack than jazz as we’ve known it, but it’s no less fascinating. If the pure piano on Invisible Baby recalls the work of anyone, it’s the warm, cinematic style of Bruce Hornsby, but Benevento never sits still long enough for a close-up. “If You Keep On Asking Me” juggles dead-slow piano sections, daubed in Taylor’s advanced tonalities, with Sgt. Pepper-ish backward guitar (played on piano). Invisible Baby proves you really can arrive without traveling. [www.hyena-records.com]
—Jud Cost
