"Bennett, whose primary influence is Goodman, brings to the table
an elegant sound, lickety-split technique and charismatic spark."
- Detroit Free Press
Dave Bennett doesn't fit the mold.
For
starters, you don't find many jazz clarinet players who name Alice
Cooper, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Chris Isaak among their influences. You
won't find many musicians under 30 who are equally conversant with the
music of Benny Goodman (the "King of Swing") and Roy Orbison ("The Soul
of Rock and Roll"). In fact, you may not find even one other clarinet
virtuoso who occasionally breaks from his Swing Era repertoire to sing
rock-a-billy hits while accompanying himself at the piano - where he
plays a mean barrelhouse boogie-woogie.
In
the early days of jazz, the clarinet joined with trumpet and trombone
to create the music's signature sound, and it ruled the roost in the
Swing Era, when jazz was America's popular music and dance-party
soundtrack. If anyone can return the clarinet to its heyday, it's Dave Bennett, who fuses serious jazz improvisation with a host of modern pop influences.
On his Mack Avenue Records debut Don't Be That Way,
he shows that his skills and interests make him perfectly suited for
the job. He stays within the mainstream repertoire, and even covers
several of the most famous hit records of the 1930s (by Goodman and such
contemporaneous clarinetists as Woody Herman and Artie Shaw). But
Bennett updates these songs with up-to-date twists and surprising new
arrangements. The result is an album that blazes his own path while
still acknowledging his predecessors, and spotlights the jazz clarinet
for a new generation. Bennett hastens to share credit for the reconceptualization of this music with the album's arranger, Shelly Berger, whom he met through Tad Weed, the pianist in his group.
Even
though he was growing up in a time far removed from the Swing Era and
the technology (AM radio, 78 RPM records) that produced it, Bennett
already had an appreciation for the era's music from the soundtracks of
the old Abbott & Costello movies he watched at home. "And then about
a month later, Grandpa bought me a cassette tape of Benny Goodman - and
that's what did it. I completely flipped out: it hit me square between
the eyes, and I knew at that moment that this is what I wanted to do
with my life." He set out to model his clarinet playing after that of
Goodman, as well as that of Pete Fountain, the New Orleans clarinetist
who kept the trad-jazz sound vital throughout the 1960s and '70s.
Addressing
this juncture of his life and career, Bennett says now, "I was trying
to 'break free' [from the restraints of past styles] and couldn't quite
get there. But Shelly [Berger] was able to make it very coherent, and in
the studio he kept everything moving along." So in one sense, Don't Be That Way
is more than the title for a collection of freshly imagined Swing Era
classics. It could just as well be Bennett's admonition to himself on
his Mack Avenue debut - to step out as a fully independent artist,
steeped in but not beholden to the way things were done in the past.
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Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library
hosts the Dave Bennett Quartet
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Upcoming Dave Bennett Performances:
October 16 / Smith Auditorium, Oakland Community College / Farmington Hills, MI
October 19 / Peabody's / Birmingham, MI
October 25 & 26 / Spencers Route 46 / Saginaw, MI
November 1 / Carnegie Hall (w/ New York Pops) / New York, NY
November 9 / Peabody's / Birmingham, MI
November 16 / Shield's Pizza / Southfield, MI
November 17 / Glendora House / Chicago Ridge, IL
November 27 - 30 / San Diego Jazz Festival / San Diego, CA
December 6/ NSU Center for the Performing Arts
(Benny Goodman Christmas Tribute) / Tahlequah, OK
December 10 / The Campanile Center for the Arts
(Benny Goodman Tribute) / St. Minocqua, WI
December 13 / Hart Public Schools / Hart, MI
Dave Bennett· Don't Be That Way
Mack Avenue Records · Release Date: October 15, 2013
For more information on Dave Bennett, please visit DaveBennett.com
For national media inquiries, please contact:
DL Media · 610-667-050
Maureen McFadden · maureen@dlmediamusic.com
For Detroit media inquiries, please contact:
Matt Lee · 248-931-2443 · mleibow412@aol.com