With an inspiring mix of acoustic piano and circuit-bending, jazz pianist Marco Benevento will take the stage in a solo concert at Redamte Coffee House Friday. Innovative and imaginative, Benevento takes jazz to a whole new level by mixing his piano skills with raw sound from amplified instruments such as Casio keyboards and children’s toys.
Benevento, a modern pianist with an electric twist, uses his instruments, not lyrics, to tell the story. He appreciates instrumental music because it allows everyone, including himself, to come away from a song with a different feeling.
“There’s no set way to do it. It gets people to use their minds and gets their imagination stirred,” he said. “Even I have a different feeling of the song each night I play it live.”
Benevento especially enjoys uniquely engineered music.
“I have my own studio, and I have a bunch of microphones and gear, and so I’m kind of an engineer in my own way,” he said.
He is currently working on a new album to be released this fall. Some of his other albums include Between the Needles and Nightfall, Me Not Me and Invisible Baby.
The pianist graduated from Berklee School of Music in Boston. He likened the experience to a “bullpen” and noted that many freshmen drop out within the first year.
“You get jilted by negatives and by all sorts of ideas of how you should sound and what you are doing wrong; it’s hard to be constructive,” he said, although he personally loved the experience.
Benevento’s four years at Berklee taught him to say “yes” to every gig and student project.
“I spent a lot of time in the practice room,” he said.
For two years, he had a gig at a bar every Thursday night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., where he played a lot of jazz. He was especially motivated by pianist Joanne Brackeen.
“She’s totally up-to-date with the jazz scene. She’s so cool,” he said.
Along with his jazzy style, Benevento is also famous for blending the acoustic piano with circuit-bent toys, something he did not learn in class.
A man came to one of Benevento’s gigs “with these crazy kids toys that had extra knobs on them and lights.”
“He modified keyboards … and this weird battery operated toy to teach kids how to learn,” Benevento said. “He just mangled them all up and put quarter-inch outs on them so you could plug them into guitar amps.”
Benevento immediately fell in love with the loud, crazy sound and started collecting circuit-bent toys. He used the sound as background music in some songs and brought it to the forefront in others.
“Some songs were totally inspired by a circuit-bent toy where you play with it and there’s this weird rhythmic glitch,” he said. “You start playing along with this weird rhythmic glitch and this messed-up keyboard and start getting compliments on the song that this weird thing accidentally made. It’s inspiring for any composition.”
At his gigs, he uses the P.A. system to broadcast the sounds made by his circuit-bent toys, creating a different environment at every performance.
“I’ll do a combination of both covers and originals … and maybe some sing-alongs. Who knows?” he said. “I like to hang out, see what the crowd is like and take it from there.”
Marco Benevento will perform Feb. 10 at the Redamte Coffee House at 449 State St. The performance will start at 7 p.m.
Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article claimed Benevento’s show was free. The show is $15. Tickets are available at http://tkgmusicgroup.com/show/
