WEEKEND REVIEWS : Jazz : Benoit Finds Beat but Swing Is Missing

David Benoit’s Wiltern Theatre concert Friday night was a classic illustration that music can have rhythm and momentum and still be completely lacking in swing.

Performing with four horns, a four-man rhythm team and a string quartet, Benoit had plenty of instrumentation. But the strings were relegated to playing sax-section-like block harmonies, the horns were blurred into musical mud by the sound mix, and the rhythms were only a mild improvement over drum machine funk.

Benoit’s most attractive quality is his ability to spin out light, refreshing melodies. Some, especially those from his recording “Shadows,” suggested real potential for development. Too often, however, their lively appeal was undermined by the aggressive clatter of drummer John Robinson, and Benoit’s annoying tendency to lean too heavily on his sustain pedal.

Ironically, given the pianist’s composing skills, the evening’s most successful pieces were two works--Vince Guaraldi’s music for the “Charlie Brown” television series--by another composer. A trio reading of the standard “My Romance” also started well, only to fall prey quickly to Benoit’s rhythmically awkward, two-handed chording.

In the single departure from the otherwise purely instrumental program, a vocal by Valerie Kingston, like virtually everything else in this audience-pleasing but musically tepid show, never quite managed to surface past a rapid current of formulaic funk.