Benevento/Russo Duo

The Benevento/Russo Duo formed in 2002 when Russo was offered a Thursday night residency at New York City’s Knitting Factory. The gig paid $100. Simple economics led Russo to conclude that a duo would be twice as nice as a quartet. He enlisted childhood chum Marco Benevento and the two performed as an organ and drum combo for $50 each. With hardly any written material at first, the band made a virtue out of necessity by converting loose sketches into 20-minute improvisations. From the very beginning, the group proved that they could also handle instrumental revisions of Led Zeppelin or Radiohead songs with equal skill and audacity. They were an indie-rock band that jammed. They were a jazz-combo that rocked.