Luca Benedetti: Slow Down For Turtles

Guitarist/composer Luca Benedetti is emerging from the same hallowed Brooklyn community that has nurtured the alchemy of Medeski Martin & Wood as well as the chameleonic likes of his fretboard peer Will Bernard. 

The winsomely titled Slow Down For Turtles, Benedetti's third album with bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Tony Mason, is an object lesson in the concept of "less is more;" its music in deceptively stark contrast to its intricate cover images, photographs by Benedetti's father of a 1974 New York City mural.

As with the very first cut, "Okapi," the 10 tracks shift imperceptibly between atmosphere and groove. As recorded and mixed by Hector Castillo, co-producer with Benedetti, then mastered by Dave McNair (Los Lobos, David Bowie), the expansive sound of the three instruments fills the stereo spectrum. For instance, on "Con Calma," the edge of the guitar strings reflects off those of the bass, while the quietly insistent push of the drums alternately lifts and encircles the two fretboarders' interplay.

Having collaborated with Charlie Hunter and John Scofield, among others, it is no surprise Mason plays such a pivotal role in assisting in the threesome's navigation of the arrangements. Yet when he leads so prominently as he does on the rock-inflected "Tick Bomb," it is as much through suggestion as the insinuating, emphatic means by which he traverses his kit.

Bassist Scherr is comparably forceful in his own subtle way on "Lady Manatee." The deep reverberations of the notes he plays form a broad foundation for his bandmates, allowing them to elaborate on the essential motifs of the composition without either hurry or hesitation.

Author of all the material on Slow Down For Turtles, Luca Benedetti deserves top billing, with both his bandmates' names listed immediately below his. Nevertheless, the frontman's intrinsic humility allows him to withdraw from the spotlight as often as not in cuts like the latter, the longest in duration here. He flicks out notes ahead of the trio to chart the course he wants to take there, then embroiders upon those respective ideas as he arrives parallel to them, alongside Scherr and Mason. 

As a result, an almost orchestral drama arises from the musicianship, implicit grandeur that not only belies the finite size of the combo, but also the implicit air of finality that pervades "Sweet Saru." Patience and precision earmark every selection of Slow Down For Turtles, but never more so than here. 

As on "Same Price" and the appropriately titled "Wattle Strut," Benedetti, Scherr and Mason might well be reaffirming the virtues of their bond as much as the wisdom of this track sequencing. Little wonder then that the concluding cut, "Knucklehead" (authored by Benedetti and Scherr), proceeds so authoritatively from the stop-and-go of its penultimate predecessor. 

This record turns out to be one of those rare instances of seemingly telepathic instinct where the music plays the band as much as, and practically as often as, the band plays the music. And that is hardly criticism, implicit or otherwise, but instead a high compliment.