TIGHT JAMS: The Duo turned to writing rock instrumentals when they realized that songs were more important to them than solos.
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Marco Benevento started out like most Berklee pianists, shedding Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett solos and scrounging for side gigs. After graduating in 1999, he even moved to New York in the hope of starting a jazz trio. But when he reconnected with childhood friend and drummer Joe Russo two years later at the Lower East Side’s Lansky Lounge, Benevento scrapped the plan. A Thursday-night residency at the Knitting Factory encouraged the pair to form the Duo, an organ-and-drums jam band that hammered out Zeppelin covers and epic improvisational odysseys for the walk-in crowd. Today Benevento’s aspirations of becoming a jazz player are long gone, and the Duo, who play the Paradise November 30, have morphed into something resembling a full-fledged rock band.
“Over the years, we were just like, let’s trim some fat from our jams and make some songs,” Benevento says from his home in Brooklyn. “I remember this one moment — we were in the Subaru, driving across the country, listening to Coltrane or some really heavy, harmonically dense tune. Joe just looked at me and was like, ‘You know what gets me off more than a solo? A good song.’ And that kind of hit home. I was like, ‘Wow, yeah, a song — not just a chord progression that you cycle for 20 minutes to jam over.’ It was just sort of an awakening.”
Russo’s grounding in rock helped facilitate the transition. “The reason I started playing drums is because I wanted to be in Kiss,” he says, hopping into a Brooklyn cab minutes after seeing Borat. “Later, I started writing songs for a pretend band that I hadn’t even put together yet. You know, rock songs with vocals and hooks and shit. I played some of them for Marco and we started adapting them for what we were doing. After a while, that became our comfort zone, and we both got excited about trying to write instrumental rock songs.”
July’s Play Pause Stop (Reincarnate) — a follow-up to 2005’s groove-oriented, Medeski-influenced Best Reason To Buy the Sun (ropeadope) — is evidence of their transformation. Most of the instrumental tracks, though prone to occasional odd-meter time changes and electronic interludes, have simple, lyrical melodies. Their live show has tightened up too. “It used to be 80 percent improvisation and 20 percent songs, but now it’s the other way around,” Benevento says.
So how do a keyboard player and a drummer survive without guitar or bass? It’s partly Benevento’s arsenal of gear, a luxury he’s been afforded since the band upgraded to a van. An organ and a Wurlitzer make up his central rig, but the stage is crowded with a foot keyboard, loop pedals, effects processors, and a host of circuit benders — homemade gadgets wired to process audio signals in bizarre, unpredictable ways. To round out the sound, Russo programs samples into a drum pad, which he triggers with his left hand while playing kit.
After five years together, as Benevento explains, the Duo have developed an effortless chemistry. “It’s really easy to communicate with just one other dude. To be like, ‘I’m going to start something, and then when we get to this part, I’m going to improvise,’ without telling him that. He’ll just hear it and be like, ‘Okay, we’re stretching it now.’ ”
Benevento does admit that the duo format can be a mixed bag. “Sometimes I’m playing a show and I’m like, ‘Wow, it sure sounds like it’s just two dudes up here.’ Other times I’m like, ‘Goddamn it, there’s so many fucking loops going on, how the hell are we pulling this off?’ Everything just kind of snowballed really quickly. But it’s been a beautiful snowball.”
BENEVENTO/RUSSO DUO | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | November 30 | 617.228.6000