Jazz Articles about Benevento/Russo Duo

Benevento/Russo Duo: Hero Rock, Mind-Reading and Constant Movement

by Paul Olson
November 27, 2006

Could a band without a vocalist be the best rock band in America?Keyboardist Marco Benevento and drummer Joe Russo formed the Benevento/Russo Duo in 2002 in response to Russo being offered a Thursday night residency at the Knitting Factory, New York's still-iconic Downtown improv club. Although the two New-Jersey-raised players were still each well short of thirty, they'd been knocking around New York for several years already, playing countless gigs with all sorts of players. The motivation behind ...

Benevento/Russo Duo: Play Pause Stop

by Doug Collette
July 15, 2006

Benevento/Russo Duo Play Pause Stop Butter Problems/Reincarnate Music 2006

This new album from Marco Benevento and Joe Russo is less an innovation--for the Duo or for jazz at large--than an extension and refinement of what's preceded it. The keyboards and drums team succeed in capturing in a studio setting the spacious and expansive sound of their live performances. It's no small achievement. Benevento and Russo's chemistry remains vigorously in play and that's ...

The Benevento/Russo Duo Live: What A Difference A Year Makes

by Doug Collette
April 29, 2006

The Benevento/Russo Duo Higher Ground South Burlington, Vermont April 8, 2006

It was exactly a year ago April 6th that Marco Benevento and Joe Russo appeared at Higher Ground in South Burlington to effectively celebrate the release of their breakthrough album, Best Reason to Buy the Sun (Ropeadope, 2005). Now it is 2006 and this is not the same duo.

But that's ultimately a good thing. Whether because they were playing to ...

The Autumn of Their Year: The Benevento/Russo Duo Live

by Doug Collette
September 16, 2005

Ya gotta love The Duo! Marco Benevento and Joe Russo obviously relish taking the stage and playing with each other for any audience that will come to see them. This early fall/late summer show, billed as a “Back to School concert was the largest audience the Duo have gotten at HG, and the late night finish, in part a result of two opening acts, was stretched by the appearance of guests that Benevento and Russo welcomed to the stage enthusiastically, ...

Benevento/Russo Duo: Best Reason to Buy the Sun

by Doug Collette
April 6, 2005

With their Ropeadope debut Marco Benevento and Joe Russo deliver a resounding sucker punch to listeners old and new alike. By bunching staples from live shows at the beginning of Best Reason to Buy the Sun (perhaps alienating confirmed aficionados), the Duo then heads into realms decidedly different along more conventional jazz lines.

“Becky" and “Vortex will sound eminently familiar to fans of the Duo and anyone who's attended one of their shows over the past few months, though markedly ...

Benevento/Russo Duo: Best Reason to Buy the Sun

by AAJ Staff
March 29, 2005

For two guys, Marco Benevento and Joe Russo make a lot of noise. They do this quite often--at home, on the road, whatever--nearly constantly for three years, ever since Russo signed on for a hundred dollars a week at the Knitting Factory back in 2002. Since then the twentysomething keys/drums duo has earned some notoriety in jam band circles for its energy and inventiveness in live performance, but it would be a mistake to lump these guys in any category, ...

Art of The Duo: Benevento & Russo Live at Higher Ground

by Doug Collette
February 19, 2005

With this, their fourth appearance in the greater Burlington area in less than a year(!), The Duo are rapidly becoming the darlings of the area music scene, but they're preparing to make a much larger impact than just Vermont's largest city: with a ballyhooed studio album set for release on Ropeadope Records in April and their cache enhanced by the increasingly frequent collaboration with former Phish bassist Mike Gordon (more about this later), Marco Benevento and Joe Russo are on ...