George Benson stays in the shallow end to please fans

By Devi M. Asmarani

JAKARTA (JP): Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a number of musicians and singers found that crossing the increasingly thin line between jazz and the more commercially viable pop was a good way to get people to buy their records, pleasing record labels to no end.

This era bred a group of stars who, despite their overwhelming musical talents, succumbed to hollow love songs and vain dance tunes, making them more famous for their hits than their skills.

One of these stars is George Benson, who performed two shows here at the Mulia Senayan Hotel on Thursday night. The shows were part of Benson's 38 appearances throughout Asia and Australia.

Benson possesses all the skills a good musician should have. The eight-time Grammy award winner is a package of musical talent, a great performer and also has the ability to write his own songs.

He is one of the best jazz guitarists around as well as a versatile vocalist -- a combination rarely found in today's jazz and pop worlds.

For most of his fans -- especially those in Indonesia -- Benson is less a serious musician than he is a person who brilliantly delivers those very same hollow love songs and vain dance tunes.

However, there is another groups of fans, including this writer, who longs to hear Benson play some real jazz.

He is not unaware of this. Once in an interview he admitted he felt obligated to please everyone.

"My most successful records are those where I've been the most versatile; when I play in different genres.

"I can't make bums anymore, where I'm working in one style. I always end up leaving out one portion of my audience.

"Besides my live shows have always had variety. That's what my fans love," he said.

That sums up his Thursday performance in Jakarta.

Fully aware the thirty-something and ups -- including high- ranking government official Robby Djohan -- who made up his audience were the types who would sing along to his 1980's pop hit Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You, he did not stray too far from this style.

The 15 songs he played were combinations of pop hits and cover songs, with the exception of two smooth instrumental jazz numbers filled with his trademark improvisational singing.

He picked up the guitar on these occasions and really got into the numbers, but most of the time he played songs like The Greatest Love of All, the lyrics of which are known by heart and recited by the audience.

Despite his talk of having to nurture polarized fans, there was little room for the jazz fans in the audience.

Veteran performer that he is, he sensed the psychology of his audience. He understood hits like Love x Love, Turn Your Love Around, Kisses in the Moonlight and Give Me the Night would serve as a tool to mesmerize the crowd, but too much lengthy and abstract instrumental improvisation would make them restless.

There is no one to blame for this but Benson's own voice, for it is hard not to be mesmerized at times by his rich, soulful and mature voice, coming from the gospel tradition.

His famed scat singing matches that of another jazz-pop singer, Al Jareau, who never made it as big in the pop industry as Benson.

One could not help but feeling a bit sympathetic for Benson during Thursday's performance, however.

It was apparent the 55-year-old singer was a bit worn out from his exhausting daily performances in different countries -- this week alone he has performed in Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, with an appearance scheduled for Friday in Perth.

At the beginning of the show, his energy was a bit tempered and his voice was rather subdued.

"I think it's important for us to be able to let people see us live, to know that we're not just some tunes on the record and on CDs. So I get a chance to see them, they get a chance to see me," he said after emerging from a cocktail party shortly before the show.

A sign that he was trying to "meet" his fans was when he covered his "favorite song of all", Nat King Cole's Unforgettable, in a voice almost indistinguishable from the legendary Cole's.

After he finished the song, he asked the cheering audience, "you want to hear something really crazy?"

That was when he sang the song again, only this time in a voice almost indistinguishable from Natalie Cole's, Nat's daughter who redid the song as a duet with her late father's voice in the early 1990s.

But with so many countries to visit in so little time, one wonders if he and his fans will actually have the chance for some quality time together.

At any rate, when Benson performed as his encore an extended version of On Broadway, the resentment of having purchased a costly ticket -- ranging from Rp 150,000 to Rp 350,000 -- for a mere hour and a half show should have abated.

Undoubtedly, the song is one of those all-time classics, a memorable tune from his successful 1976 album Breezin, marking his crossover to rhythm and blues from jazz.

Brilliantly using his voice as an instrument in the dynamic song and mixing some Latin rhythms in the middle of the tune, the song showed the strength of Benson's band: drummer Michael Whit, percussionist Dannis Rosales Saucedo, bassist Stanley Banks, guitarist Michael Philip O'Neill, keyboardist Thomas Rax Hall and pianist David Jay Witham.

But however nit-picking you are about some of the show's flaws -- rather poor sound system, the fact that he did not sing his 1976 hit This Masquerade -- in the end, the performance was much better than you can expect to see in this city anytime soon.

And that will probably be enough for organizers to invite Benson back.