1972 studio album by George Benson
White Rabbit is an album by George Benson. The title track is a cover of the famous Great Society/Jefferson Airplane song by Grace Slick.This album was George Benson's second CTI Records project produced by Creed Taylor and was recorded nine months after Beyond the Blue Horizon.
Background
"White Rabbit" was described at Billboard[3] as "a dynamic pop-packed jazz LP with two extraordinary works "California Dreaming" and "White Rabbit"". For this project Creed Taylor and Don Sebesky used the formula that gave them good results in other recordings with Verve Records and A&M Records: two successful rock/pop songs covers from The Mamas and the Papas and Jefferson Airplane, music from a well-known soundtrack like "The Summer Knows" ("Theme from Summer of '42) of Michel Legrand, a jazzy version of a classical Brazilian song "Little train" from Heitor Villa-Lobos "Brachianas Basileiras No.2" and an original George Benson composition, "El Mar" . In all tracks featuring Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Billy Cobham, Airto Moreira, Jay Berliner, Hubert Laws plus nine studio musicians playing at different wind instruments and harp arrangements. This album was the recorded debut of a guitarist,[4] Earl Klugh, only 17 years old by then, featuring on "El Mar".
Interviewed by Jeff Tamarkin[5] at "Music & Musicians", answering a question about the choice of Jefferson Airplane's song for this album, Benson said: «I had never heard of it before. I’d never even heard of the group! It sounded so bizarre, as opposed to what I wanted to do. But I have never run away from a challenge.» The track that named the album was Don Sebesky's initiative as he recognized to Marc Myers in an interview at "JazzWax",[6] after listening to Jefferson Airplane's record Surrealistic Pillow, which was released by RCA Records in 1967 and he brought the proposal of the album to Creed Taylor: «I suggested we do White Rabbit in a Spanish mode. He agreed. George Benson doesn’t read music. He just heard the song and automatically fell into the groove. It shows you that music doesn’t exist on the page, only in the air.»
Benson told at the interview with Tamarkin that «The White Rabbit album was very exciting—it was an adventure. I really enjoyed doing that stuff», nevertheless Didier C. Deutsch cited at the booklet[7] of the CD digitally remastered, released in 1987 by Epic (EPC 450555 2) that Benson didn't like the 'tracking' process followed by CTI for this album, by means of a studio technique where the soloist, rhythm section, and background ingredients are recorded separately with overdubbing made afterwards.
Reception and critics
The review of this record at Jazz Musical Archives[8] "White Rabbit" is rated as a four stars album considered to be "a slick but interesting album from a great guitarist" where "the sound of guitar dominates, both acoustic and electric".
In the opinion of John Kelman[9] in All About Jazz this album "was (and remains) an anomaly in Benson's prodigious catalogue» and to him "White Rabbit¨ is "a curiosity that transitions between his more mainstream efforts and the soulful jazz/pop star he was about to become".
"White Rabbit" was the first Grammy Award nomination[10] to George Benson in 1972 at the category of "Best Jazz Performance by a Group".
Album design
The original 1971 LP cover was designed by Bob Ciano and features Pete Turner's picture of Pondo tribeswoman that he photographed in South Africa in 1970.[11] George Benson recognized in his autobiography[12] in 2014 that the fact that Creed Taylor didn't put his photo on the cover «was a factor that played to the success of this album».
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