George Benson – Giblet Gravy (1968)

1. Along Comes Mary
2. Sunny         play
3. What’s New?
4. Giblet Gravy
5. Walk on By
6. Thunder Walk
7. Sack O’ Woe
8. Groovin’      play
9. Low Down and Dirty
10. Billie’s Bounce
11. What’s New? [alternate take]
12. What’s New? [alternate take 2]

Personnel: 
George Benson (guitar); 
Albertine Robinson, Lois Winter, Eileen Gilbert (vocals); 
Eric Gale , Carl Lynch (guitar); 
Pepper Adams (baritone saxophone); 
Jimmy Owens (trumpet, flugelhorn); 
Ernie Royal, Snooky Young (trumpet); 
Alan Raph (bass trombone); 
Herbie Hancock (piano); 
Billy Cobham (drums); 
Johnny Pacheco (congas, tambourine).

This reissue of Benson's 1968 Verve LP is worth the price of admission just for three of the small-group cuts. "Billie's Bounce," "Low Down and Dirty," and "Thunder Walk" find the guitarist stretching out in the company of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Billy Cobham on an uptempo Charlie Parker blues, a gutbucket slow blues and a deeply blue hard-bop groove tune, respectively. This recording sits right between Benson's early small-combo records as a leader and his move to even more heavily produced recordings for CTI.

The grooves are groovy, the horns are punchy, and the then-future of jazz guitar makes his way through the charts as feature artist, laying down the head, shadow boxing with the swaggering arrangements for a chorus or two, and getting out in a radio-friendly two minute and fifty-nine seconds. Plus you get to hear Benson and Hancock duking it out like they mean it on "Low Down and Dirty."

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

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