Amazing US keyboard player Marco Benevento is living up in the country with frogs and snakes and the Woodstock moon, workin' on a mad genius new studio album to be released sometime late next year!! In the meantime, lots of shows are on the horizon (check out the complete entry to this free track to access the full tour dates). Marco sent us this free track for the collaborative Paris DJs mix #300 but missed the spot by just a few days... It's a Galt McDermot cover, you've heard the original already in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair AND it's been sampled many times. It should get...

Marco Benevento - Bene Live April 2011
(Free Digital Live Compilation) The Royal Potato Family, 2011-04-28

Have we ever told you how much we loved Marco Benevento keyboards playing? Many times over? Yeah you might be right. To sum it up one more time, there's been John Medeski and now there's Marco Benevento. Musicianship of the highest order!! Today we have FREE MUSIC for you, nine jams culled from Marco's three-day april run a few weeks back in Greenfield, Collinsville and Asbury Park. Big thanks to Clinton "Cleantone" Vandais for recording and mixing this lil' sampler called Bene Live: April '11

Download it free here

Marco Benevento, Andrew Barr and Reed Mathis perform Pink Elephants On Parade

Garage à Trois - Always Be Happy But Stay Evil
Featuring Skerik, Stanton Moore, Marco Benevento & Mike Dillon
(CD/LP/Download) The Royal Potato Family RPF 1104, 2011-04-11 (CD/Download) 2011-05-02 (Vinyl)

Garage A Trois was recently described by noted photographer John Margaretten as, "A transformative, punkalectic, pornographic seizure of sight and sound." Few descriptions have ever so perfectly encapsulated the modern day post-rock/freak-jazz super group. A force greater than the sum of its colossal parts, Garage A Trois features Seattle-based saxophonics master Skerik, Brooklyn-based sound-sculptor/keysman Marco Benevento, punk rock vibraphone hero Mike Dillon and New Orleans funky drummer/beat master Stanton Moore. After the success of the quartet's 2009 release, Power Patriot (also the band's debut with Benevento replacing original member Charlie Hunter), Garage A Trois headed to Studio In The Country in Bogalusa, LA (where masterpieces by The Neville Brothers, Stevie Wonder and The Wild Magnolias have been cut) to record with revered engineer/producer Randall Dunn (The Cave Singers, Sun City Girls and Black Mountain). As has become the band's primary focus in its current incarnation, a laser sharp focus was paid to capturing Garage A Trois' sinewy, fourth-dimensional, polychromatic instrumental songwriting. The resulting album, Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil, delivers from track to track exactly as its title boasts.

Festival Sons d'Hiver : Bitches Brew Revisited - PHOTOS BY JeanSaintJean

Vendredi 4 février dernier, à la salle Jacques Brel à Fontenay Sous Bois, eu lieu un double concert des plus mémorables, avec pour commencer un fantastique hommage à Miles Davis dirigé par Graham Haynes (accompagné, entre autres, de Marco Benevento au claviers et DJ Logic aux platines)... suivi d'un show du guitariste Ghanéen Ebo Taylor (accompagné des funksters de l'Afrobeat Academy).

Notre envoyé spécial JeanSaintJean avait fait le déplacement et nous a ramené plus d'une centaine de photos pour chacun des concerts. Une session de shooting dans des conditions pas forcément fantastiques (au premier rang, en contre plongée, dans le noir), dont nous avons essayé d'extraire la crème...

A voir : la selection Bitches Brew Revisited
la selection Ebo Taylor & Afrobeat Academy

Ebo Taylor - Love And Death info
Free The Robots - Ctrl Alt Delete info
Gonja Sufi - A Sufi And A Killer info
Homelife - Exotic Interlude info
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - Stay Gold info
Marco Benevento - Between The Needles And Nightfall info
Mushroom - Naked, Stoned & Stabbed info
Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro - Tradition In Transition info
Skeletons - Smile info
The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun info

After publishing a solid 10-records-a-year selection of the last decade (from 1999 to 2009), we took a few days to think about the 2010 best of... READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON COLORED-INC.COM

Festival Sons d'Hiver : Bitches Brew Revisited / Ebo Taylor & Afrobeat Academy
Vendredi 4 février salle Jacques Brel à Fontenay Sous Bois - 20h30

Le concert à ne pas manquer en ce début d'année 2011 aura lieu en région parisienne durant le festival de Val de Marne Sons d'Hiver. Il réunira le même soir un bon barouf de jazz psychédélique avec un hommage à Miles Davis par le supergroupe Bitches Brew Revisited (avec, entre autres pointures, Graham Haynes, DJ Logic et Marco Benevento!), ainsi que le retour du guitariste ghanéen Ebo Taylor accompagné des funksters de l'Afrobeat Academy (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers...) que nous avions programmé à la Bellevilloise en juillet 2009 dernier!!

Ebo Taylor - Love And Death (Strut) parisdjs
Free The Robots - Ctrl Alt Delete (Alpha Pup) parisdjs
Gonja Sufi - A Sufi And A Killer (Warp) parisdjs
Homelife - Exotic Interlude (Humble Soul) parisdjs
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - Stay Gold (Kinnara) parisdjs
Marco Benevento - Between The Needles And Nightfall (Royal Potato Family) parisdjs
Mushroom - Naked, Stoned & Stabbed (4 Zero) parisdjs
Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro - Tradition In Transition (Tru Thoughts) parisdjs
Skeletons - Smile (Impossible Ark) parisdjs
The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun (Strut) parisdjs

After publishing a solid 10-records-a-year selection of the last decade (from 1999 to 2009), we took a few days to think about the 2010 best of... The first thing that came to mind when weed look back at the past 12 months, was the obvious blast of compilations that were released. From the incredible Ninja Tune XX boxset (6xCDs, 6x7", 2x12" and a book - all new tracks and remixes!), the amazing "world" compilations and reissues from Soundway Records, Analog Africa, Academy LPs, Nascente or Vampisoul, the fantastic and rare funk/jazz stuff from the diggers at Finders Keepers, Jazzman or Luv'N'Haight, the jaw-dropping sets from Numero Group, all those Fania Records reissues... I'm missing a few but you get my point: this is highly-entertaining quality stuff, but from hte independent's viewpoint it also looks like the music industry has never been so much focused of its back-catalog.

Meanwhile, a few labels are still doing the job of distributing today's music to the people of today, and maybe they deserve a little bit more spotlight... That's what we thought would be interesting to look at anyway. We had to forbid ourselves not to put any Colored-Inc. release in our selection, of course, even though some of the records we've put out this year were simply astonishing... such as the Hard 2 Find series for example!

What was left: some genre-bending electronic/hip hop/psychedelia marvels from Gonja Sufi and Free The Robots, from the Los Angeles beats scene, ecstatic afro/jazz from Germany (Eboy Taylor & Afrobeat Academy), Canada (The Souljazz Orchestra), or England (Skeletons), addictive cumbia/soul from Columbia (Quantic and his Combo Barbaro), psychedelic folk exotica from former Nina tune affiliates Homelife (their leader Paddy Steer has also released a solo album that's quite a treat too), and finally mesmerizing jazz/indie rock mixtures from Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey or Marco Benevento, both released thru the sensational US label The Royal Potato Family. Well, all in all another good year for music, nothing like 1976 when stadium FM rock was rising and Hotel California was king...

Contenders : Bonobo, The New Mastersounds, Randa & The Soul Kingdom, Fat Freddy's Drop, The Qualitons, Saravah Soul, Hidden Orchestra, The Roots, Kings Go Forth, Big Pimp Jones, The Hot Rats, Flying Lotus, Candice Monique & The Optics, Aloe Blacc, Cochemea Gastelum, The Bees, Roots Manuva, Lloyd Miller & Te Heliocentrics, Brownout, Grupo Fantasma, Mike Gordon...

Marco Benevento - Between The Needles And Nightfall
(CD) The Royal Potato Family, 2010-05-11

Back with his third full length studio album in as many years, Brooklyn-based pianist and sound sculptor Marco Benevento delivers Between The Needles & Nightfall on May 11 via his label Royal Potato Family. With the release of this album Marco Benevento continues to define himself as one of the most prolific new voices of his era, blurring genres from song to song, and more often from measure to measure, with his own take on simple pop pleasures, dance party rave-ups and art jazz experimentation. He speaks in modern sonic tongues, all cut-and-pasted, tweaked-out and glitchy, but full of wide-eyed wonder that rejoices in the limitless horizons of sound and melody.

Surprise Me Mr. Davis - That Man Eats Morning For Breakfast
(Digital/Limited CD) The Royal Potato Family, 2010-04-13

The often elusive American rock and roll band Surprise Me Mr. Davis, comprised by members Nathan Moore, Brad and Andrew Barr, Marc Friedman and Marco Benevento, have announced an April 13 release for their long-awaited EP, That Man Eats Morning For Breakfast. On the same day, the band will commence their first shows of 2010 with a five date Northeast run that begins in Boston, stops in Providence and Albany, and concludes with back to back nights in Brooklyn and New York City. Later in the month, they'll play two late night shows during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. SMMD also plans three dates in the Northwest at the end of June before heading to California for two sets at High Sierra Music Festival. The seven song EP will be available at all major digital retailers, including iTunes, Amazon and Emusic, while a limited edition CD release will be sold exclusively at the band's shows and through their website.