So with all of this jazz/jam crossover action, what differentiates a jazz band from a jam band? Is there even a boundary? "You could easily draw a line between the bands that are more jammy and the ones that are more jazzy," Benevento believes. "Medeski, Martin & Wood is definitely more jazz, that's the foundation for those guys. But jam bands, like Moe, Phish, or the Disco Biscuits, they're more all over the place, musically. They might play some Latin-sounding thing, then some funny, Zappa-style thing and then go into a one-chord jam and come out doing barbershop quartet vocals." And on which side does Benevento see himself? "Neither, really," he replies. "I mean, what my bands do definitely has elements of both jazz and jam stuff. But the rhythms we go for don't have as much of the swing that jazz drummers tend to have. And most of the tunes we play are in the four-to-five-minute range, whereas jam bands can go for 20 minutes or longer on one piece. We're more on the straighter side of rock than jam bands usually are. I guess I'd describe the music I play as 'experimental instrumental rock.'"
After the Benevento/Russo Duo's most recent release, Play Pause Stop (Reincarnate/Butter Problems Records) appeared in 2006, Benevento unveiled his solo debut, 2007's Live at Tonic (Ropeadope Records). But following the release of his next disc, 2009's Invisible Baby (Hyena Records), he experienced a business epiphany. "About 20 seconds of a Benevento/Russo tune got used in an episode of 'CSI: NY' and they paid $18,000 for it, but the label got half," he says. "So my manager and I thought, 'Wow, if we had our own label we wouldn't have to split the money with anyone!'" Thus, with Benvento's next effort, 2009's covers-heavy Me Not Me, he co-founded the Royal Potato Family, an imprint that's also home to releases by Yellowbirds, Neal Casal, Super Human Happiness, the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and others.
At the same time he and his manager were launching the Royal Potato Family, however, Benevento and his wife were launching their own family, and outgrowing their Brooklyn apartment. The clan moved into their Upstate digs (complete with egg-providing chickens) in April 2010, a month before the label released Benevento's dazzling Between the Needles and Nightfall. Immediately, the keyboardist found his footing in the local musical community. "Right after we got here I ran into [Medeski, Martin & Wood bassist and Saugerties resident] Chris Wood at the farmers' market," he says with contented disbelief. "Then I got to play with Levon Helm at one of the Midnight Rambles and did some tracks on A. C. Newman's new album [2012's Shut Down the Streets]. It was just, like, 'Yeah, this is the place!'"
Benevento's newest album, TigerFace (Royal Potato Family), is a mind-blower, easily his best yet. Recorded partially at Woodstock's Applehead Recording and Los Angeles's East West Studios (where the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds was cut), it amazes with the loping, gospel psychedelia of "Going West," the Baroque dub of "Fireworks," and the pastoral "Eagle Rock." Besides being a big departure in that its pop-leaning pieces are his most concise, song-oriented compositions thus far, it also introduces another new element: vocals, by Rubblebucket's Kalmia Traver, who sings on the softly lilting "This Is How It Goes" and the pounding dance-rock track "Limbs of a Pine." "It was all just a totally natural growth," says Benevento about the new approach. "When you're starting to play to 500 people at somewhere like [New York's] the Bowery Ballroom and they're shaking their booties and getting more into it when you're doing these simpler, groove-oriented tunes than they do when you're doing all the piano balladry, you start to think, 'Hmm, maybe we should do more of the groove stuff.' Which is a lot of fun, actually. So some of it came out of that, but some of it just came from my taste in music expanding. I've really gotten into Can, that whole hypnotic style. Some nights I just like to put my looper on and let it go for a while, instead of always trying to play so much."
In addition to Traver, TigerFace's numerous other contributors include drummers Matt Chamberlain (Bill Frisell, Pearl Jam) and John McEntire (Tortoise) and bass players Dave Dreiwitz (Ween), Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green), and Mike Gordon. "It's not often one meets someone as full of life and music as Marco," says Gordon via e-mail. "On one end of his personality, we find a virtuoso pianist all 'studied-up' on jazz, classical, and other such idioms, and clear on the other side there is the circuit-bending, melody-molding radical, with real neon glowing out of his tiny parlor piano." The Phish bassist adds, "And yet it's all one and the same, since shooting right down the center is the most smiley, joyous, kind, hypercreative jolt of spinal juice you'll ever do a shot of."
