BENJAMIN CROFT
Pianist taps into classic sounds on his Hugh Syme-illustrated second album.
BENJAMIN CROFT GREW up in Sheffield in the 80s, and took piano and trumpet lessons from the age of seven. He would soon fall under the spell of Mahler, Bartók and Stravinsky. But then, when he was 16, he found his true calling thanks to a certain progressive rock icon.
“I saw Rick Wakeman playing on a TV show called Home Truths,” he tells Prog. “This was the 90s, I’d never heard of him, and I was like, ‘Wow!’ My mother said, ‘Well, if you like that then you might want to listen to this.’” He brandishes his beloved vinyl copy of Close To The Edge. “And that literally changed my life. Wakeman was my hero. I’d hated piano until then, but from that moment on I practised eight hours a day. I discovered artists like ELP, UK, Weather Report, Return To Forever, Allan Holdsworth, and that was it for me. That’s what I wanted to do with my life.”
All these influences and more inform Croft’s exceptionally accomplished second album. With artwork by Hugh Syme (Rush/Dream Theater), Far And Distant Things is a deeply complex, highly listenable collection of instrumentals drawing upon the best fusion, prog, classical and jazz. It’s brought to life by Croft’s virtuosic core band and an enviable roll-call of guest players, among them guitarists Frank Gambale, Mike Miller and Barry Finnerty, trumpet veterans Randy Brecker, Allen Vizzutti, and former Zappa drummer Chad Wackerman.
“Chad was just incredible,” says Croft. “If you can play [Zappa’s] The Black Page or Mo ’N Herb’s Vacation you can play anything, and he nailed St Gandalf’s within a few hours.” With its fusion tonalities and frequent, compound time shifts, that’s just one of the Monty Python nods on the record, along with Tudor Job Agency and The Cashectomy, the latter wryly inspired by the financial struggle endured by Croft and his fellow jobbing musicians in recent locked-down times.
After graduating from Leeds College Of Music (where he quit trumpet and focused on keys), Croft made his living as a piano player. He did the cruise ships (“Military, Big Brother operations – I got fired from a lot of them for misbehaving.”) and moved to the US, floating from New York to Vegas to Seattle, wherever the paying gigs – with Belinda Carlisle,
The Platters, The Coasters – took him. Since returning to the UK a decade ago he’s performed regularly at clubs including Ronnie Scott’s. One evening comedy legend Bill Murray watched him play; on another, Croft surrendered his piano to Stevie Wonder for an impromptu jam.
Released in 2019, debut album 10 Reasons To… was well received by the jazz audience, although some were wrong-footed by Croft’s proggy flavours, the unorthodox sounds of his extensive vintage synth collection. “It really confuses them,” he says, with just a little pride.“I lost track of prog for a while, but when I started writing again it all came back. Now I’ve come completely full circle, to what was influencing me as a child. And even if jazz people hate it, prog people will get it.”