1. Footin’ It (George Benson/Don Sebesky)
  2. Face It Boy, It’s Over (Angelo Badalamenti/Frank Stanton)
  3. Shape of Things to Come (from Wild in the Streets) (Barry Mann/Cynthia Weill)
  4. Chattanooga Choo Choo (Mack Gordon/Harry Warren)
  5. Don’t Let Me Lose This Dream (Aretha Franklin/Ted White)
  6. Shape of Things That Are and Were (George Benson)
  7. Last Train to Clarksville (Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart)

George Benson – guitar
Herbie Hancock (01, 04), Hank Jones (03) – piano
Charles Covington – organ
Richard Davis (03, 05), Ron Carter (02, 06, 07) – bass
Leo Morris [Idris Muhammad] – drums
Jack Jennings – vibes (01, 03, 04)
Johnny Pacheco – conga
Joe Shepley – trumpet, flugelhorn (except 03)
Marvin Stamm – trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo (except 03)
Burt Collins – trumpet (02, 05-07)
Wayne Andre – trombone, baritone horn (except 03)
Alan Raph – trombone, tuba (except 03)
Buddy Lucas – saxophone (except 03), harmonica (04, 07)
George Marge, Romeo Penque – flute (01, 03, 04)
Stan Webb – flute (01, 04)
Bernard Eichen, Charles Libove – violin (01, 03, 04)
David Mankovitz – viola (01, 03, 04)
George Ricci – cello (01, 03, 04)
unknown – vocals (02)

Produced by Creed Taylor

Arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky

Originally issued as A&M SP 3014

Recorded on August 27 (01, 04), September 5 (03), September or October 17 (05) and October 22 (02, 06, 07), 1968, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

01 published by BMG Platinum Songs US/Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc. (BMI)
02 published by Edwin H. Morris & Co., Inc. (ASCAP)
03, 06 and 07 published by Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc. (BMI)
04 published by Warner Bros., Inc. (Warner Bros. Music Division) (ASCAP)
05 published by Fourteenth Hour Music, Inc./Pronto Music (BMI)

(P) 1969

As George Benson (b. 1943) tells it, it was no less an authority than Wes Montgomery who told Herb Alpert that the young up-and-comer from Pittsburgh was the next big jazz guitarist.1 Alpert passed this along to Creed Taylor, who immediately went about recruiting the guitarist into the A&M/CTI fold. Benson came to CTI after a long stretch with Jack McDuff’s group, several greasy albums for Prestige, Columbia and Verve and a lauded appearance on Miles Davis’ Miles in the Sky. Benson, in fact, turned down an offer to join the trumpeter’s group to focus on his own budding career.

Benson’s signing so soon after Montgomery’s death might cause some to suspect that Taylor was trying to fit Benson in a slot vacated by Montgomery. But Shape of Things to Come proves that it was a match that was meant to be. It sounds nothing like Wes’ records and, indeed, presents Benson in one of the earliest settings that suits his tremendous talents.

Taylor has often stated that he would have pursued Benson even had Montgomery survived and even critics had to admit “Benson demonstrated that despite the format he was still his own man.”2 There is little doubt that Taylor heard the hit potential in Benson’s mellifluous melodic single-line facility. And while there is no question Benson admired and appreciated Montgomery, he audibly possessed his own feel for the fretboard that yielded an approach and a sound unlike any other – and, to this day, one which is much copied.

Shape of Things to Come was released with plucky bravado in March 1969. The album’s title is as much a declaration as “The New Wave of Jazz Is on Impulse!” was a few years before, signaling Creed Taylor’s intent to make George Benson the new star of the jazz guitar.3 But a glance at the menu suggests a restaurant that’s taken fusion cuisine to new extremes. The music here bounces from soul pop and soul jazz back to big band and bubblegum. But Chef Benson somehow holds it all together (a coherence that must be credited to Don Sebesky as well) with his signature recipes, seamlessly blending soul and jazz to whatever dish is at hand.

“Footin’ It” steps out in the right direction, with Benson making it perfectly clear that – despite Sebesky’s Wes-ful counterpoint – he’s no copycat, imitator or wannabe. Benson’s attack and phrasing drip with the honey of soulful strutting that Montgomery’s more bop-inflected octaves could never touch. The soul gets deeper on the blues workout “Shape of Things That Are and Were,” where Benson amazes with stunning fret work and a melodic conception of improvisation that is his and his alone. Ron Carter’s superbly swaggering bass here brings out the very best in Benson.

The guitarist ably handles the two soul numbers as though they were written especially for him: Nancy Wilson’s “Face It Boy, It’s Over” (co-written by a pre-Twin Peaks Angelo Badalamenti) and Aretha Franklin’s soul samba “Don’t Let Me Lose This Dream.”4 The pop here, on the other hand, is a little sweeter than usual, but affably suited to Benson’s welcoming approach. T

he album’s title track and single, from the soundtrack to the 1968 counter-culture comedy Wild in the Streets, finds Benson overdubbing himself on an alto guitar with a Varitone attachment. The effect is sci-fi soul and points to experiments Benson would pursue later on Beyond the Blue Horizon (1971) and, let’s be honest, what one hears on K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight.”

The surprising cover of The Monkees’ hit, “Last Train to Clarksville,” also works to Benson’s advantage, building a groove that suggests Benson had heard the Four Tops inject some soul into this chewy little number. 5 There’s no doubt that drummer Leo Morris – who would shortly become known as Idris Muhammad – is the conductor of this train. Another train, “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” doesn’t necessarily sound as out of place here as it probably is. In this context, it is an anachronism that borders on parody: a train that’s had its day or one that’s gone off the tracks.

Although a typically stellar cast of supporting players is on hand, including Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter,6 only organist Charles Covington, drummer Morris and conguero Johnny Pacheco stand out particularly – and more for comping than commentary. Interestingly, it is Benson who dominates the proceedings, even more than Montgomery did on his own recordings – which allowed for more gamely interplay with players like Hancock and Carter.

Ultimately, Shape of Things to Come is a good first step in the long Benson-Taylor relationship. But there’s an overall sense that something’s amiss. As the album travels through its pleasures (nearly every solo and the originals), it warbles through some awkwardness that can be off-putting (whatever one’s tolerance for the varying genres traversed here and the uneasy way some of them are presented).  

A psychological reading of the record hints that the relationship between guitarist and producer was uneasy from the very beginning. “Creed was in charge,” said Benson, “and I had very little say in any aspect of the record, from the material, to the musicians, to the half-naked picture of me [on the album’s back cover]. There were things that went on with which I wasn’t particularly pleased, but I was so happy to be in an environment where people knew what they were doing that I kept my mouth shut.”7

Regardless, the album contains a number of worthy artistic moments that hold it out as one of Benson’s better jazz statements, at least to this point. Shape of Things to Come hit a respectable number 12 on Billboard’s Jazz chart and reached number 38 on the Soul chart, signaling that, indeed, the best was yet to come.

About the cover: From the series “Shapes of Things to Come” (1969 – Fire Island). Developed while Turner and his wife, Reine, were renting a house on Fire Island, this series experiments with shapes and complex multiple exposures. This cover is an early example of what Turner was trying to achieve: “I had these shapes with me and a piece of weathered wood that had some texture to it.” Waiting for a sunny day, Turner adds “I did it for fun. I was trying to portray a futuristic cityscape – and it worked.”8 Later photos in the series experiment with reflection, while a second series, produced the following year, experiments with perspective, as can be seen in Turner’s cover for Joe Farrell’s Moon Germs (1972). George Benson’s back-cover photo here seems to be something of a Muhammad Ali-like challenge to Wes Montgomery’s photo on the back of A Day in the Life.

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Endnotes:

  1. Andrew Scott, “George Benson: Rise,” Waxpoetics, Issue no. 46, 2011, p. 63. ↩︎
  2. Feather, Leonard and Ira Gitler, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the 70s (Da Capo: New York), 1976, p. 66. ↩︎
  3. An ad for Shape of Things to Come appeared in the April 17, 1969, issue of DownBeat, proclaiming “It’s the shape and sound of things to come from the guitar – but you can dig it now.” The ad also revealed the wizards of this new Oz, boldly stating that Benson’s offering was “A new album from Creed Taylor and A&M Records.” ↩︎
  4. It’s worth noting that Benson would team up with the Queen of Soul herself for the 1981 duet “Love All the Hurt Away.” ↩︎
  5. The Four Tops covered “Last Train to Clarksville” on Four Tops Reach Out, the same album as their hit “Reach Out,” which Benson covered quite nicely earlier in the year on saxophonist Hank Mobley’s Blue Note album of the same name. ↩︎
  6. Both Hancock and Carter recorded with Benson in January 1968 for Miles Davis’ “Paraphernalia” from Miles in the Sky. Two additional tracks Benson recorded with the Davis group in early 1968, “Side Car II” and “Sanctuary,” were included on the trumpeter’s Circle in the Round, issued in 1979 (all three of the tracks are included on The Complete Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet 1965-1968, issued on CD in 1998). Hancock and Carter, along with Shape-mate Johnny Pacheco, are part of the February 1968 recordings for Benson’s superbly realized Giblet Gravy, the first of his two Verve records. ↩︎
  7. Benson, George with Alan Goldsher, Benson: The Autobiography (Da Capo Press, Boston, Mass, 2014), p. 132. ↩︎
  8. Turner, Pete, The Color of Jazz (Rizzoli: New York), 2006, p. 36. ↩︎