April 2011

Adam Benjamin
Alphabets & Consequences

By Bill Milkowski

A founding member of the renegade Brooklyn-based group Kneebody, keyboardist Adam Benjamin makes a bold leap with this intriguing collection of 20 intimate solo piano pieces, most of which are under three minutes long. The playlist ranges from meditations on “Old Joe Clark,” Joe Zawinul’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and Wayne Shorter’s “Fall” to pointillistic takes on “All the Things You Are” and “Monk’s Dream.” Alphabets & Consequences also includes iconoclastic readings of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (for prepared piano) and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” along with sound portraits of Benjamin’s Kneebody colleagues on “Shane Endsley” and “Ben Wendel.”