Genre: Jazz
Places I remember: The Warehouse, Hastings NZ
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles/ Gear costume: Breezin'
Active compensatory factors: When I was working for Marbecks Records during a 1981 University holiday, George Benson's double album The George Benson Collection came out. Oh my my! Did it go off!! We're talkin' mega!! I lifted a ton of those beasts onto the racks!
At the time the smooth jazz guitar stylings were a bit too poppy for my tastes. Plus I had/have this thing about stuff that everybody is buying.
Instead I picked up a compilation, in the Columbia Jazz Profiles series, that is much more to my taste, being pre-pop stardom Benson.
Anyway. Breezin' had come out in the mid seventies and my old buddy (as in he's been a mate for yonks), Greg Knowles, taped a copy for me and I fell for the first few tracks, before the strings take over. It became a guilty pleasure of sorts.
And now, here it is some 40 years later and I picked up a CD copy cheap from a clearance bin at a red shed. It still has that lovely glow of familiarity about it - a re-acquaintance with an old friend!
Where do they all belong? George's pop/jazz niche is pretty much his own, so, kudos George. Next up it's back to Anouar Brahem in the jazz genre.
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