George Benson - Witchcraft (1989)

Witchcraft and/or All Blues are stereo recorded live in a small venue with a very quiet (for the most part respectfully silent with occasionally light applause for solos) audience. Recorded at the Casa Caribe Club, Plainfield, NJ, in April 1973, these recordings which made several off brand label releases (The Jazz Hour, Prestige, Bianco), were mainly released in Europe and were never a part of George Benson’s “official” catalogue discography, making them something close to but not quite bootleg albums. They are easiest to find in Used record/CD stores or in jazz music stores.
What you find here is awesome jazz recordings, true jazz, in the manner of early Benson, even preceding his CTI days. Al Harewood on drums and Mickey Tucker on piano shine right alongside of Benson in a terrific display of nightclub improvisations which are modestly well captured on stereo microphones, the old fashioned way. Most of this music is very Brubeck in style and approach, as with the title Miles Davis tune. This is definitely lo-fi, void of any superficial polish and what you get is the real deal folks, the true raw talent that is George Benson, right at the pinnacle of his success as a jazz guitarist.
I started with Benson because of The Beatles. A few weeks, literally, after the release of Abbey Road, George, under the auspices of his contract with Creed Taylor at A&M recorded and released The Other Side Of Abbey Road as a magnificent tribute to The Fab Four, and how well their music could be interpreted in jazz. This led me to CTI which was formed shortly after that, and I became a stalwart fan of all the CTI masters, Deodato, George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Hubert Laws, Airto, Nina Simone, the amazing Wes Montgomery, and many others. Now a Benson fan for life, yes even through his pop-jazz period in the 80’s, I always have an eye out for undiscovered pieces with strange covers and/or titles. It took me quite a bit of research to find out what this album actually was before I decided to go ahead and pick it up. All the music on both Witchcraft and All Blues were previously assembled in a double album set (ten total songs) under a few different titles (depending on which country you purchased them from) but mainly as “Witchcraft”, available in the USA from The Jazz Hour. Some overlap of songs was used in release of two titles of single albums as well as “Witchcraft” and “All Blues” on the Prestige (UK and USA) label and the Bianco (Europe) label.

The ALL BLUES release has: 1. Love Walked In; 2. Dahlin’s Delight; 3. Love For Sale; 4. The Masquerade Is Over;, 5. There Will Never Be Another You; 6. All Blues
The WITCHCRAFT release has: 1. There Will Never Be Another You; 2. Love For Sale; 3. Lil’ Darlin; 4. All Blues; 5. Witchcraft; 6. Oleo
The “proper” release of WITCHCRAFT as a double CD (double album, four sides) should have:
Disc 1: 1. Witchcraft; 2. Blue Bossa; 3. All Blues; 4. Love Walked In; 5. Love For Sale
Disc 2: 1. Invitation; 2. Lil' Darlin; 3. The Masquerade Is Over; 4. Darlin' Delight; 5. Oleo ~Amazon

Track listing
01. All Blues (12:37)
02. Witchcraft (9:39)
03. Love For Sale (14:05)
04. Li'll Darlin' (11:14)
05. There Will Never Be Another You (10:38)
06. Oleo (10:26)
~ (68:38)



Thx to vicpalbk2006