Daniel Bennett Group – Mr. Bennett’s Mind
Daniel Bennett Group has just released an amalgam of jazz and folk, Mr Bennett’s Mind, with saxophones and pianos and a rhythm that’s at once snappy and groovy as the melodies capture your focus. How do jazz and folk music combine? This is where you find out. Mr Bennett’s Mind is an instrumental collection, with quick light melodies to lead you down various pathways and explorations, and it’s quite captivating.
In “Turn Clockwise and Push” if you listen closely, every phrase is in a new key. It’s amazing. And Daniel’s saxophone playing is so light and the piano is so catchy and bouncy that it’ll brighten your countenance. And there are an abundance of hooks.
Next up, “The County Clerk” is a waltz, and again the group changes key in every phrase, and you are led on meanderings. “Talk to Your Panda” is piano trills and sax speaking to one another, and here’s where the folk elements come into play, within the melodies.
“Bank Robbers” sets up with flutes telling the tale and, as the plot thickens, the piano takes the lead out into the tension and frenzy, all gently done.
While the jazz bones of the music will form an immediate impression, the improvisational elements segue into home styles of music. The melodies are quite detailed and the stories unfold quite nicely without a vocal needed at all.
Mr Bennett’s Mind was produced, mixed and mastered by MP Kuo; and recorded at Big Orange Sheep in NYC and also at 2nd Story Sound in NYC.
Musicians on the album are Daniel Bennett on alto sax, flute, clarinet, guitar, and keyboard; Jason Yeager on piano; Kevin Hailey on electric bass and Koko Bermejo on drums.
Find more details here: https://danielbennett.net/home