Wayne Bethanis Interview #3 - "Don't Rush Benny Track" - The Final on Vinyl Podcast

Excellent discussion on jazz and how Wayne Bethanis created the jazz instrumental track "Don't Rush Benny."

Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:14

Hello everyone, it's Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck with the Final on Vinyl Podcast, and we're back with Wayne the Fanis. I spoke to him about a month and a half ago um about some track releases he's been putting out there. And uh recently, July 3rd, actually, he put out a track called Don't Rush Benny, which is a jazz instrumental, and I enjoyed it very much, and uh we're here to talk about it. Hello again, Wayne.

Speaker 0:42

Hi Keith, it's great to be here as always.

Speaker 1 0:46

Thank you. Let's talk about your voyage into jazz. Uh I enjoyed it very much. Um it's kind of like a boogie-woogie with some pop around the edges, and uh what made you decide to go into a jazz direction and you know what are some of your influences that pushed you in that direction?

Speaker 1:07

That's a great question. This is actually my third jazz single. What really pushed me in the direction was that uh from my album Listen, which was sort of a a very big album commercially for me, I had a jazz track on there called the Bexley Bop. And that was the great song because that was all about how I was dating someone from Bexley, Ohio, and the person turned out to be um, I don't know, you know, it turned into one of those very dramatic moments. And so I thought, I'm gonna write a jazz boogie that's going to lift my spirits. But here's what ended up happening. I didn't have any great intentions for that song, but I ended up shooting a video, and the song went viral on TikTok, and there became like this dance-off to it because the song had such a strong backbeat. And Boogie Woogie Piano has always been in my blood. There was a famous um musician from the 70s and 80s named Daryl Dragon, and he was part of a group called Captain and Tonneal. And later in life, he sort of took me under his wing, and he was a boogie-woogie keyboardist. And so I was to answer your question on a deeper level, I was very influenced by that music. So what was interesting is Captain and Teneal and other groups, you know, from the 70s, they all sort of got misappropriated into different categories based on the optics of who they were, but most of them were really accomplished musicians. So I was deeply influenced growing up by Daryl Dragon and his boogie-woogie keyboard. And so I had it in my blood to actually do it. And so I wrote that one song. It became a hit, I think it made it to the top 20 on a jazz chart, and I thought, okay, this is great. And then on my next album, Sonic Bloom, which you actually reviewed, um, I did a jazz piece called Ten of Hearts. And that was another big moment that uh became that went on the Grammy ballad for um one of the jazz categories, right? And that has a boogie woogie bass. So there is a lineage to this current single, the thing I've ever had writing a boogie woogie. And you know, a lot of it, a lot of great piano playing goes under the radar when it gets orchestrated. In this particular one, because half of it I performed on a Rhodes electric keyboard, it really shines, you know, it just pops right out. So half of it is on a Rogue, and the other half is on a Steinway Grand. So there's that interesting juxtaposition. And keep your fingers crossed because I'm inventing a genre called Baroque Boogie. It's where there are so many classical elements and sh and structuring to these boogie-woogie songs that I'm writing. If you really listen to them, they're super, they're super tight and um, I would say very evenly structured. A true boogie woogie is gonna have a lilt. It's gonna have like that that dotted rhythm in it where it's bum, bum, bum. It's gonna have a swing. My boogie woogies don't really have a swing, you know, because I am so classically trained that I still have that pole up my butt. And it's gonna right, it's gonna be even and it's gonna be measured, but somehow it works really well. So Don't Rush Benny is my best one ever. It's got a light, breezy, boogie-woogie in the bass, and a really friendly, familiar, sort of melodic figure that repeats. Then let's talk about the name of the song. You want to hear why it's called Don't Rush Benny?

Speaker 1 4:52

Well, that was gonna be my next question, actually.

Speaker 4:55

Okay. I've gotten at least I've gotten hundreds of uh people asking me who is Benny? I'm gonna tell you. Benny is the famous uh jazz violinist and composer, Benedict Bredern. He's lives in Los Angeles, he's from Germany, he's one of those guys who wins all these giant awards for symphonic works, and he's a jazzer too. And so I sent the song over to him to be orchestrated. He's a genius, by the way. I sent it over to him to be orchestrated, and I said, Okay, Benny, you know, this song is pretty simple in structure. It's just got the boogie boogie in the left hand, and I said it very varies a little bit, and all you know, all you have to really do is put a nice coating of strings and brass or whatever you want to, and I said, You'll have it in no time. And he goes, No, you no, you don't rush me, okay? You don't rush me. I will take all the time I need because it has to be perfect.

Speaker 1 5:56

And that's great.

Speaker 5:58

Isn't that great? Isn't that great? Well, the RD is it took him, oh, he did it really fast. He slapped that orchestration on, I think, in maybe like he's a genius, though. Um, in like, I don't know, less than a week, I got it back and I thought, you know, I have to call this song Don't Rush Benny, because he was right. You know, you have to let every single note breathe, you have to live with it, you have to let in any art form, if you're a writer, a sculptor, a visual artist, if you're a poet, you have to let if you, you know, are an interviewer or a journalist, you do have to let your subject matter really breathe, right? And so right, and so the cover art for Don't Rush Benny is a really fun illustration of me with trumpets, but the original one, which I might have a poster made of, is Benny pointing a finger at me, and he's like a little cartoon of himself pointing a finger at me saying, Don't rush me. But then we thought, no, that's uh that's a little too personal. We can't use that one. But yeah, um, that's really the basic um, those are the influences for the song, and that is um the idea, information, and source of the song Don't Rush Benny.

Speaker 1 7:14

Interesting. Well, you know, you say it it was simple, um, but you know, as a listener, there's complexities there that I heard. You know, but I'm listening on a in a different level than you because you're the creator and to you it might be uh on a simple level musically, but as a listener, there's all kinds of layers there. So to me that's complex, you know, and uh not an easy thing to do.

Speaker 7:42

Sure. I understand exactly what you're saying. The piano part itself and every single piano part that I ever write from you know my albums and my songs always starts with a piano solo, which means that that piano part can get extracted out and published, and people can, you know, they can go on musicnotes.com or all the platforms and they can buy the original piano piece. So the original piano piece for Don't Rush Benny is not simple to play and not simple in its harmonic structure, but it's simple in its form. It has a boogie-woogie uh left hand throughout, which is really hard on the pinky, by the way. And then um yeah, very hard on the pinky, finger five. But the um melodic figure in the right hand dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee, not super complex, um, and it kind of comes back and forth. I think that what you're talking about is just the entire um process with the orchestration and the actual piano, when it all comes together, it's uh it is a very multi-layered arrangement. And it is true yes, it's true jazz. I mean, when Benny put in that that those those that flying brass and those layers of strings in there, I mean, suddenly it becomes, it it jumps out of the speaker and it becomes something that really creates its own environment. When you go on music notes and you want to buy the song, you know, the Wayne Bethana Solo, you'll see the the actual piano part that's being played, which is a wonderful, wonderful boogie-woogie on the piano. But when it's added to the orchestration, it bec yes, you are correct, it becomes a very multi-layered joyride with many different instruments and my piano part weaving in and out of it. So on that level, it is um a very sophisticated piece.

Speaker 1 9:57

Yeah, I'm just curious to know um over the years what you've listened to. You ever listen to any people like Professor Longhair, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, um Dr. John? I mean, people like that.

Speaker 10:11

Yeah, I've listened to everything, and um, like I said, Daryl Dragon was a big influence on me, and he was very, very influenced by um Fats Domino and uh Jelly Roll Morton and people like that. And so I do have that lineage um coming to me from from that source. And on my own, as far as my exposure to jazz, you know, I have my doctorate in music, so I really had to study basically everything. And I've always said this, um, I said this in different interviews. I I'm a crossover artist, and you mentioned this in your review. You know, I'm really willing to take chances. If an idea occurs to me, I'm gonna see that idea through no matter what. It doesn't matter whether I'm gonna be writing something that's straight up neoclassical or new age or adult contemporary or, you know, in this case, sort of smooth jazz or pop pop jazz. And the influences really come from everywhere. And I said be, as I said before, I am a sort of strange fusion of many different, you know, kind of um talents, but also exposures to different levels of training. So if I'm gonna do jazz, it's gonna contain the people that you talked about. Jerry Lee Lewis, I had to play um all of the basic Jerry Lee Lewis stuff, you know. It and I, you know, there was a point where I would wear like a cowboy boot and hit the high keys on the piano, and like I really had fun with Jerry Lee Lewis and his his style of piano playing, and I consider it just as important as any other style that's out there, you know, with the tone clusters, and he had his own technique, almost like he manipulated gravity. It looks like he's playing lightning fast, but when you learn the technique that he uses, you're you're letting gravity do the work for you. So you're gonna lift that hand or that boot with minimal energy, and then gravity is gonna pull it right down to the keys, right? And so, you know, there is there are there's a certain uh method to playing in the styles of any of the people that she mentioned, especially in boogie woogie, because you're gonna have that repetitive pattern, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, in the left hand all the time, and just stop that left hand from getting tired or atrophying, um, you're just gonna manipulate gravity. When you make it to that level of musicianship, and all the secrets of the universe kind of open to you because your hands are free to do whatever you want. And I love to show people how to do that so that they aren't confined to just finger playing and um, you know, so yeah, everybody has influenced me. But like I said, there's the unique thing about my approach to jazz is that it does have uh a high level of evenness to it. It's not it's not it's not messy, flexible jazz, it's not anything that's fusioned, it's very structured and yummy. You know, it's like you'll hear almost like d in Don't Rush Benny, there's direct scales like bum, bump, bum, bum, bum. Uh it's almost like in the ease of an ABC pattern. And it really is charming in the setting that I and then like I said, when Benedict got a hold of it, suddenly it just exploded out of the speakers, you know, with long string lines and punctuated brass sections. And um there's something I think um very um I don't know if you can hear it. I'm I live in the middle of the city, there's lots of sirens, and it's kind of interesting too, because it's like a horn being played while I'm talking. Um you know, there's there's like right, there's like um um a real interesting journey when you listen to jazz, whether it's pop jazz, light jazz, or when you get into deep, you know, kind of jazz um sequencing and that sort of thing, um, there's nothing like it. It's such an American art form, even though it has its roots in African rhythms and the French impressionist, you know, Ravel used so many jazz chords, that kind of thing. There's there's really nothing like it. And like I was um starting to say earlier, I said in many interviews, I play jazz when I'm really down. Otherwise, you know, I'm playing my you know, my big piano pop songs or my new age stuff, or like this morning I played to a Bach piece. But when I'm down and I always kind of find comfort in jazz. And so I'll sit at the piano and I'll play, you know, different jazz chord progressions, and there's something about the way they bend, the way it bends the harmony that really can transport you to a very beautiful sort of pastel-colored reality. I think you'll agree with that. There's really nothing like it. And uh, yeah. Yeah, and it's very surprising in my body of work. So, like I said, I had these the other two jazz pieces from the last two albums. Like I said, the Bexley Bop, which was the first one, that really sort of brought me a whole new audience of people, you know, who kids who were dancing to it on TikTok, and then, you know, I mean, I mean, I'll say this very diplomatically. Um, I started to get a lot more credibility because of my work in the um smooth jazz. You know, I've known all the big players my whole life, and you know, I'm I'm with A-Train, and they handle the biggest jazz acts in the world, and you know, I'm I've been exposed to it, but I started to get sort of a uh um, I guess you could say, a wider um appreciation for my musical output when I wrote the jazz pieces. And that's interesting to me because there's so much meticulous detail in my other work. You know, there's you know, everything I do, I mean, I'm definitely the Joan Crawford mommy dearest of the studio. I mean, if you if you're gonna do something, do it right or don't do it at all, right? And so even with Don't Rush Benny, like there, I I'm so careful with making sure every note is in its place and that it's pleasing to my ear. But my work with jazz brought me more credibility as an artist, and that was surprising to me because here I am thinking, oh, you know, I've got good reviews, so I guess everyone thinks that Wayne Bethannis is, you know, on top of his game. But then when I did songs like this one, the one we're talking about today, um, it does open up, I guess, probably a broader market as well, because new age and adult contemporary can be niche. They can be niche markets. And this kind of song, Don't Rush Benny, is so licensable. I can see it in movies, I can see it, you know, I can see it on a commercial, I can see it all over the place. My soul, and I told you this in the last interview, my heart and soul is in pop music. I have won major competitions as a young artist in classical music. I've got great fingers for classical music, but I spent every penny I had growing up on pop music and, you know, and great pop music and rock and roll, groups like Yes and Genesis, and and like I said, um, you know, I was a total, I don't know what you would call it, you know, a total slave to pop culture. I loved Carpenter's Captain and Tonille. I loved all of that stuff, and I'm dating myself talking about it, but those were true influences on me because it even at that age I was actually able to hear the notes and the sophistication beyond whatever the um, I guess the the iconography or the the cultural perceptions of who those groups were. You can say that the Carpenters were um sort of a saccharine goody two shoes kind of kind of band, but Karen Carpenter's voice is one of the greatest voices in the history of recorded sound. And so, you know, I was thinking in those terms rather than any, you know, I was holed up in my little bedroom in Kent's Hill, Maine, and listening to music all day long. And so I didn't really have a reference for outside influences on the way, you know, the greater public would perceive any of this music that I was listening to. For me, it was basically my education until I got conservatory training after I left high school. And so jazz wasn't a big part of it, but I was super aware of, I didn't play much of it, but listening to Daryl Dragon when he would put big monster jazz organ solos on their albums. I mean, they're brilliant. And so that sort of got in my DNA. Plus, I like to have fun. I really like to have fun.

Speaker 1 20:02

You you mentioned pop and then along the same lines, you're saying Genesis and Yes, which is complex progressive rock. So, you know, you're going from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Speaker 20:13

Well, that's the thing, Keith. I mean, I I really listened to everything. And so that's my greater point, is that whether it was jazz, pop, or prog rock, or I had heavy metal albums, um, you know, and I loved English Invasion in the 80s. Oh my gosh, Style Council, um, I was into everything, Culture Club, all of it. I I listened to so much music that I didn't really think about the material in terms of popularity. I listened to it in terms of, oh, this really speaks to me. Right. So, right. And so if I'm listening to the album Fragile by Yes, I mean, that I'll never forget that experience. And then, you know, there was a piece on there called Cans and Brahms. I used to play this Brahms piece on the piano, and um uh, you know, that band turned it into this incredible sort of prog sounding uh arrangement and everything else on that album. And let's say later in the day I'm listening to really upbeat pop music because that's pleasing to my ear as well. I didn't think about who was popular and who wasn't, I just thought about what was pleasing to my ear. And we talked in last time there was Daryl Dragon, but definitely, I mean, Peter Gabriel was a huge influence on me. And he wasn't really necessarily a keyboardist. And so there was that too.

Speaker 1 21:47

But yeah, um well, it it's it's amazing how much you can just talk about you know, one track and how our conversation just developed over these past 20 some odd minutes. Uh it just branches off and branches off because once you start digging and looking at the whole thing, looking at an overview of how you got to that one point and made This music, there is a lot of moving parts there, and there's a lot of history there. And it's about who you are, Wayne, as a person.

Speaker 22:21

Oh, that's a wonderful thing to hear, and that was very well said. And you have mentioned, you know, when you have reviewed my work, I'm not afraid to take risks and I'm not afraid to jump out of genres. Remember, I've been the king of New Age piano for quite a while now. And if you really listen to my albums, it can be classified as New Age, but you know, there are there's a, in my opinion, a vast range of influences in all of my work. And so I'm very flexible in releasing anything that appeals to me. And it's funny because I'm never really going to go too deep into any one genre. I'm somehow like this machine of accessibility. I'm going to take all of these influences, and whether I'm playing jazz, pop, new age, adult contemporary, whatever's coming out of me, it's always going to have a certain accessibility to it because that's the way I am as a person. Remember, I host the Piano Garden, which is the number one New Age instrumental show on the MixedCloud charts, and I'm constantly receiving music from artists who want to be on the show. So I have to dig through a lot of things as well. And ultimately, if I compare myself to all the artists that I am coming in contact with or engaging with, um I tend to be very um, I guess you could call it commercial. Like I really want to make beautiful music that is appealing and still retains a certain amount of depth and uh, I guess you could say, sophistication to it. I've naturally struck a balance with that from the beginning. It's hard to pigeonhole me, Keith, because I will try anything. And from Jazz, I just released a contemporary Christian song. It's being played in every Catholic church in the world at this point. I mean, you know, it's um I I guess that's because, like you're saying, I availed myself, I grew up in the middle of nowhere. And I lucked out and I had a Juilliard teacher from the age of five until I was 18. Not saying that was the most pleasant experience, but it was really my world. I mean, I had this little bedroom. You know, my brother was older, so he got the big bedroom. I had this little bedroom with my um, you know, my stereo, my how how I listened to my music, and that's all I ever did. And I used to play in church, and I made $35 an hour, even at that age, way back then. I always had money in my pocket from playing piano from a very young age, and all that money went on buying, whenever my mother took me into town, uh, I would come home with two or three albums. And that is what gave me my start. And the way to make it in this business is you will make it if you just keep doing doing it. Well, you're gonna have highs and lows, you're gonna be rich, you're gonna be broke, you're gonna be rich, you're gonna be broke. You to make it, there is nothing magical about it. You just have to keep doing it. And keep doing it. And you know, you have to let God fill in the gaps, okay? And that is that is you will make it. And even when you've made it, you still think you haven't made it because there's ups and downs.

Speaker 1 25:59

But that's right.

Speaker 26:00

Yeah, that's it. You know, right, that's life. That's life. Like I said, you're broke, you're rich, you're broke, you're popular, you're out, you're in. But if you keep doing it, you're going to have this cycle of success. And you're also going to be very happy because you don't want to get to the end of this ride and say, geez, I'm so glad I quit. You know, when you get to the end of this ride, you you want to say, I kicked its ass. I I did everything I could. And I think that that is how I've kind of you know approached this this particular movie of my life.

Speaker 1 26:41

All right, Wayne. Well, thank you so much once again for coming on board, the final and vinyl podcast, and talking about your music and your life and everything else in between. And uh, I hope we get a chance to speak again.

Speaker 26:54

We will. It's always my pleasure. And uh, you know, you ask wonderful questions, and the song is available everywhere, I'm everywhere. Just Google my name. And like I've said before, I have an award winning website that no one goes to. I have an I have a website that's the unbelievable, incredible website, but people migrate to my Facebook page. Check me out at wayne defantis.com. You'll love it.

Speaker 1 27:18

All right, Wayne. Take care. Bye bye now. Thank you.

Speaker 27:21

Bye.