“ Well I've had to simulate the working jazzman's progress. I've had to create situations of growth- or rather situations were created by the way in which I live. At the piano, in music, or away from the piano. What I mean is that if the making of music is your overall goal, the way you live becomes kind of a musical process. You're continually searching to absorb everything that happens to you and incorporate into music” -Cecil Taylor-

“For if the products of an artist life work or to be the sum of his life, then Herbie Nichols, a jazz musician who seldom worked where he could play his own music and who has no records in the current catalog, maybe said not to have lived at all” -A.B. Spellman-



This album of improvisations started off as a one off experiment, then morphed into a weekly investigation of my solo language via improvisation. Like all creative individuals, you eventually reach a crossroads with periods of severe self doubt and worth. I’ve never had the opportunity to present my music to an audience on any consistent basis. My recorded body of work has been documented in one form or another since the early 1990’s. Though well received by a few, it still is cloaked in invisibility due to many reasons.

So what to do??? As stated in the Cecil Taylor quote above, I decided to take the matter in my own hands. I decided to document my “Live Performances” via my iphone and Zoom iOS mic and post these improvisations on FB and Vimeo. Yes I know…. not a novel idea but it did provide a solution. Though I have fought the impulse from time to time and deleted my recordings with military precision from the public record , I STILL have this need to create music and to share it with an audience.. Whether that audience is in the flesh or a collection of “0’s” and “1’s” via the internet.

I approached each “performance” as if I were in front of a live audience. I think that this mindset was of the utmost of importance as it helped push me to go to the next level to communicate to this live virtual audience. And like a live performance, there was no going back to redo… they are for keeps; mistakes and all!!!

The performances were recorded live in my studio. They investigate concepts that I have been working on for a number of years. What this process proved to me is that I would be able to communicate and perform these ideas solo without the input of other musicians. To quote Robert Fripp, I became ''a small, intelligent, highly mobile unit.'' The performances range from solo piano and drums to combinations of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. I have tried to come up with an individual language, vocabulary, and sound based on my multitude of influences from jazz, classical, world, and electronic musics.

To make this an exclusive listening experience, I extracted the audio from each video and did a bit of editing and light processing in Logic X and Audacity. Some of the earlier recordings were done via the internal iPhone mic,but the vast majority have been recorded via the Zoom iQ6. This upgrade provided a tremendous increase in clarity and stereo field, but it also introduced some digital distortion! I later found out that this was due to not having the phone on Airplane Mode. This happened early on. I decided to include some of these performances due to the high quality of the music. I have done my best to surgically edit out most of this distortion without sacrificing the sonics or performance.

I would like to thank everyone who has given me the confidence and motivation to continue this sonic journey. The road is long, dark, and lonely, but the light illuminates the treasure at the end.

And…. A SPECIAL THANKS to my friend of 40+ years, the brilliant artist Russell Floersch (russellfloersch.com) for allowing me to use his painting Horn and Tulips (1987-1988) for the album cover. We shall continue to fight the good fight together!!! -Joseph Benzola-

"Solo Language: Collective Improvisations 2016-2018 compiles the audio from a series of improvisations that Benzola videotaped and posted to Facebook. For Facebook brevity I won’t go into much detail other than to say that the 11 improvs of varying lengths in this set further showcase the breadth of Benzola’s talents. We’ve got electronic oriented pieces, like ‘For Pauline Oliveros’ and ‘For Jimmy Carl Black’, which are notable for their hyper-kinetic percussion and freaky effects fun. The nearly 23 minute ‘Live WUSB Performance’ is one of my favorites, starting with brief spoken word and then settling into a multi-percussion, electronic, droning, Eastern inspired, soundscape-psychedelic excursion. If you want to know why Benzola calls his label ‘Amanita Music: Creative Psychedelic Sonic Explorations’, all is revealed right here. I’ll also single out ‘Improv 6 February 2017’, which is a stellar example of Benzola’s more abstract/experimental Classical side.

"Joseph Benzola is a unique and challenging voice, yet pleasantly accessible to anyone willing to surrender, immerse and digest. I’ve said several times over the years how it blows my mind that this guy has never been featured on the cover of The Wire, and I’ll add that it should be a special issue with flashing neon LOOK HERE!! lights. AND… I’ll be darned… as I’m wrapping up this review I see that Benzola only just yesterday posted yet another new album to Bandcamp: Portraits Of The Dead Complete: 1995-2019. Run… and I mean RUN to this one immediately" -Jerry Kranitz- Aural Innovations-