Benny Green: A Trio-Hopping Pianist

When pianist Benny Green took Gene Harris’ place with bassist Ray Brown’s trio in August, he had some mighty large shoes to fill.

Harris, a founding member of the Three Sounds whose bluesy approach has made him one of the most popular straight-ahead, acoustic pianists in jazz, was, to many, the trio’s drawing card.

Not to worry, Brown told Green: Just be yourself.

“I’m not the new Gene Harris, I’m the current Benny Green,” the pianist said from Spain, where he was touring with his own trio. “Ray made it clear he wanted me for me, and wants me to develop my own voice, not be another Gene or Oscar (Peterson). Gene is great, but it’s a totally lost cause to try and re-create somebody else’s thing.

“Gene, of course, is a blues master, but Ray sees me differently, sees me as more be-bop oriented, and wants to make use of that energy and exuberance,” Green said. “So I’ll have to reach within myself and find out what I have to offer and try to let that blossom.”

Green, who has also played with Art Blakey and Freddie Hubbard, appears with Brown’s trio Tuesday through next Sunday at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood. The pianist said there are definite differences between his trio, which can be heard on “Testifyin’,” his latest Blue Note release, and Brown’s.

“With Ray, the emphasis is perhaps more a variety of material, on arrangements and on dynamics,” Green said. “He has a knack for music that is hip musically, yet is very accessible, very listenable.

“With my own trio,” whose regular members are bassist Christian McBride and drummer Carl Allen, “we focus on original material and leave the arrangements more open, so we can interact and not get locked into any one thing.”

Brown, who is assembling a new repertoire that will be recorded on Tel Arc Records in early 1993, is proving to be an ideal teacher, Green said. “I’m getting absolutely top-notch tutelage,” he said.

Say Goodby . . . Say Hello: Drake’s, an intimate room in Glendale where singers and instrumentalists offered subtle, soft performances for about four years, has closed. Meanwhile, two restaurants in Beverly Hills have added sounds to their menus: the Rangoon Racquet Club on Little Santa Monica Boulevard, where Claude Williamson, a keen be-bop stylist who was active in Los Angeles in the ‘50s and ‘60s, holds forth Thursdays through Saturdays; and Jimmy’s, on Moreno Drive, where singer Joyce Garro appears Tuesday.

Critic’s Choice: Steve Huffsteter, certainly one of the most musical of artists, has played his inventive, appealing brand of be-bop-based trumpet with Stan Kenton, Bob Florence, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Poncho Sanchez. The man with the crisp, spine-tingling sound is best heard, however, when leading his own quintet through a program of scintillating originals, as he does Saturday at Lunaria in West Los Angeles.