Kneebody

Kneebody’s self titled debut on Greenleaf Music showcases the band’s musical depth and non stop creativity. The band’s five members bring lessons learned from their experiences backing artists such as Ani DiFranco, Jurassic 5, Snoop Dogg, Daedelus, Phil Woods, Steve Coleman, Chaka Kahn, David Murray and Ravi Coltrane to this project. The result is an organic, original instrumental music that has, as one L.A. Music Connection reviewer wrote, “an epic, trans-generational gravity.” All the music on the album is composed by Kneebody.

Personnel: Adam Benjamin (keyboards), Shane Endsley (trumpet/pedals), Kaveh Rastegar (bass), Ben Wendel (saxophones) and Nate Wood (drums).


Subscriber Bonus: Conception
An unreleased track from Kneebody keyboardist Adam Benjamin’s new album “It’s A Standard, Standard, Standard World.” The album contains 36 tracks of standard songs arranged and created by Adam using Garageband 1.0 using only the internal sounds. If you don’t recognize the song, it’s George Shearing’s “Conception.” In a recent Greenleaf blog post on the new album, Dave D. says:

“Adam traipses through timbres, textures, and tunings. The variety is astounding. What at first seems to be potentially smirky and sarcastic (though still first-in-the-class brilliant), soon becomes a majestic tour de force. It’s a unique and heart-felt (I believe) tribute to the repertoire. There is so much original thought and material put into this that at times you forget the subtext, only to be jolted back by the clear statement of a melody or a set of chord changes.”

What else can you do with standards that hasn’t been done (short of hiring Rod Stewart)? Adam shines a light. I recommend it highly.