H. Jon Benjamin has done quite a lot of things over the span of his illustrious career. You might know him for having a van, or for voicing the title characters in Archer and Bob’s Burgers. Or maybe for playing Carl on Family Guy, who has seen every movie ever made. Point is, the guy’s been around a bit.
Now, though, we get to understand him in a new context, when H. Jon Benjamin releases his first album. A jazz album. A bad jazz album. A bad-on-purpose jazz album.
This Friday, Benjamin will be releasing Well, I Should Have… on Sub Pop records. The album finds him playing lead piano with a jazz ensemble, as part of his newfound goal of becoming a “jazz daredevil.” As he put it:
“Jazz is the ocean… I am just one wave forming one curl, crashing once onto some remote beach somewhere in time. And that wave makes a small imperceptible change in the slope of the sand, upon which at some point in time a baby turtle will walk across, leaving his trail for just an instant, before the tide washes it clean. That’s a pretty cool analogy. More to the point, I do not play piano and I made this jazz album.”
I’m pretty sure that quote achieves its maximum effect if you read it in the voice of Bob. Or Archer. Or Carl. You get the idea. Generally, I wouldn’t give much credence to an album that is bad for the sake of being bad, but Benjamin has earned enough credibility over time that, if nothing else, this album is worth a listen. You can check out a clip from it below.
(Via The A.V. Club)
