Rest-Stroke Picking In Jazz Music By Goerge Benson

Goerge Benson is an American musician who was born on the 22 of March 1943. He was an avid jazz musician and began his career as a jazz guitarist at the age of 21. He used a rest-stroke picking technique and loved scat singing and this can clearly be heard in the song. A rest-stroke picking picking technique is when one string on the guitar is picked and is followed through with strum of the following notes He was born and raised in Pennsylvainia, where he started out at the very bottom. As a young boy he played in bars and nightclubs illegally but he says his music always kept him on the straight and narrow and he is admired by many for his strong drive, motivation and willingness to put in the effort to make himself big and his name heard. He is also currently 73 and happily married.

He released this track on his album called weekend in L. A.

The song has been redone by many other artist that have added their own perspective and stylistic characteristics. The George Benson rendition is the greatest having hit #7 on the billboard hot 100 and #2 on the Soul charts. The vocal range he uses in this song is extraordinary and because of the fact that it has a rolling bass line it makes it easy for one to scat and/or improvise. This allows one to explore their vocal range in the song in a both free yet controlled way.

George Benson definitely does this song justice and everyone who tries to implement the strategies he uses finds it difficult because of his unstructured and jazzy improvisation that often doesnt tend towards the tonal structure resulting in an almost intensional dissonant sound. It is hard to pull off such a song but with hard work and practice this song can give a singer that real edge above