Ropeadope

Marco Benevento is best known as one half of the Benevento/Russo Duo, the acclaimed instrumental indie rock, post jazz experimentalists, who’ve earned a legion of fans performing at high profile events like Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Fuji Rock Festival and Bonnaroo, while drawing rave reviews at publications ranging from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork.com. Holding court behind a dizzying array of vintage keyboards, upright and toy pianos, pedals, samplers and other circuit bent gadgets, Benevento has established a reputation as one of the most exciting young keyboardists to emerge in the last decade.


Beyond all the accolades and hype, however, is a supremely-inspired, ever-curious 29-year old artist whose spirit remains rooted in the musicians he studied under and played alongside when first starting out; teachers like Kenny Werner, Billy Hart, Brad Mehldau and Joanne Brackeen and band-mates like Bob Moses, Ari Hoeing, Terreon Gully, Adam Dietch and DJ Olive. It’s exactly that innocent childlike desire to play the piano and unbridled passion for musical exploration which led Benevento to set up shop every Wednesday in November 2006 for a residency at Tonic, the recently shuttered New York City improvisational music Mecca.


Inspired by Ropeadope’s recent release “Christian McBride Live at Tonic”, Benevento invited his old friend Andy Hurwitz (Ropeadope label boss) along to document the proceedings. Alternating between group and solo performance, Benevento played two sets a night and was joined by a different cast of musical co-conspirators for each show. The highlights were edited down, mixed and matched and presented here on three discs of wide-eyed, daringly fierce and cosmically joyous music entitled Marco Benevento--Live At Tonic.