Photo by Michael Weintrob

The property that Marco Benevento shares with his wife, two daughters and nine chickens is located outside Woodstock, N.Y., in the rural town of Saugerties. Tucked away at the end of a residential street on a tree-lined plot of land that includes a small lake that his oldest daughter has affectionately named Parade Pond, Benevento’s wood-paneled home has the charm – and adult camp feel – of Levon Helm’s converted barn/studio, which happens to be located just a few miles away.

For more than a century, artists and other free spirits have found solace in Woodstock and ever since Bob Dylan settled nearby in the ‘60s, the area has been a mecca for rock musicians hoping to get “back to the garden.”

Benevento moved his family a few hours north of New York City about a year and a half ago, after spending much of his twenties and early thirties in Brooklyn exploring the often busy intersection of jam-rock, indie-pop, groove-oriented jazz and egoless avant-garde music. He bought his new home – chicken coop included – from a doctor who used it as a second home and converted a small shed on the property into the ultimate ivory-keyed playpen. It’s one part recording studio/rehearsal space, one part museum – stacked with everything from vintage analog equipment to hard drives filled with futuristic piano sounds equally rooted in post-rock minimalism and Muppet-style mayhem.

In many ways, that yin and yang between acoustic piano and 21st century keyboard experimentation has been Benevento’s calling card since he first broke out as a solo artist six years ago.

He’s decorated his man cave with some personal touches, too, ranging from old-school memorabilia from his days touring with The Benevento-Russo Duo to his trusty vaporizer. Phish’s Mike Gordon recently stopped by with his family to try out a new bass, and one of Benevento’s closest collaborators, drummer Joe Russo, stayed over a few days earlier while in the area for a gig at Helm’s barn.

Though it’s officially release day for Benevento’s fourth and potentially career-defining solo studio record TigerFace, the 35-year-old keyboardist/composer/part-time T-shirt designer is enjoying a much-needed day off between two trips to the Bay Area – both of which, as a testament to his standing in the modern musical landscape, included onstage collaborations with Phil Lesh. During his second visit, he even had the unique opportunity to rework Deerhoof’s “Twin Killers” with the Grateful Dead bassist.

But, as he prepares a batch of his trademark eggs spiked with some fresh veggies from his home garden, Benevento seems more than 100 miles from the music industry’s East Coast capital.

“I’m on empty right now – I need to slowly get fueled up to where I am ready to actually think about the next new thing,” the always playful, shaggy-haired Benevento says shortly after pulling out some freshly laid offerings from his kitchen refrigerator. The door is decorated with different accolades, including a certificate that one of his daughters received for her first haircut.

These days, Benevento is a mature mix of family man and entertainer: His children’s pink ear muffs, which protect them from loud music, hang on hooks by his front door, and, later in the day, he’ll teach a private music lesson as part of charity project to help pay for his five year old’s day school. His wife Katie, who Benevento met through his old pals The Slip, is in town at the moment picking up some supplies for family friends who are visiting from overseas. The Beneventos recently bumped into another New York jazz refugee, bassist Chris Wood, and his family at a local farmers’ market.

“A lot of people know who I am, but there’s even more people who don’t,” he says with a childish grin. “It just takes that one song that reaches out to somebody – who plays it for ten of their friends and then, they play it for ten more of their friends. Maybe some of my new tunes are a little more listenable or more pop – maybe they’ll reach out to people more.”

Photo by Michael Weintrob

Benevento was first anointed an heir apparent to the jam scene’s improvisational crown as half of The Benevento-Russo Duo, the forward-thinking instrumental combo that he formed with his lifelong friend Joe Russo. They attended the same Northern New Jersey middle school, bonding in class and dreaming up ideas in detention. The pair went their separate ways in high school, with Russo eventually moving to Colorado and joining the free-jazz ensemble Fat Mama, and Benevento attending Boston’s Berklee College of Music.

In Boston, Benevento studied jazz piano, fell in with The Slip crowd and, eventually, formed The Jazz Farmers. Soon after he graduated in 1999, he moved back to the New York area and reconnected with Russo entirely by chance. While waiting in line for a Medeski Martin & Wood show at the now-defunct club Tonic, Benevento ducked into a nearby bar to use the bathroom. Russo happened to be performing inside, the pair exchanged numbers and they started to gig in a variety of settings. Their first show as a duo took place at a Madonna tribute held at the hippie-rock incubator Wetlands Preserve in the summer of 2001.

Benevento’s sensibilities were defined at an early age as a mix of high-brow ideas, manic creativity and suburban restrictions. He likes to tell a story about advertising a public jam session at his Brooklyn apartment only to have his dad and brother, both of whom are lawyers, freak out that he might get sued.

The Duo, as they were eventually called, gradually picked up steam in the New York area through steady gigs at clubs like Knitting Factory and the endorsement of scene tastemakers the NYC-Freaks. They reached a new level of national attention in 2004 when they toured with Mike Gordon, who they met through Ropeadope records, and proved to be anything but a Phish offshoot with their post-jam masterpiece Best Reason to Buy the Sun.

Throughout the modern jam world’s leanest years, The Duo built a stable following and served as hipster-approved ambassadors to the indie-rock blogosphere. They also somehow managed to glue together the jam scene’s often isolated jazz, electronic, rock, funk and art house factions.

“A big part of why I like music is the free element,” Benevento admits, picking up the pace of his speech as he gets excited. “Meaning, improvising music on the spot in any style – whether it’s totally quirky, funny music or crazy Ornette Coleman-esque free-jazz music or pop/rock progressions made up on the spot. I love writing songs ‘live,’ playing with simple chords.”

During The Duo’s heyday, Benevento assumed the role of the hyper jazz-loving melody man while Russo embraced his image as the harder-edged, rock-loving drummer. They quickly picked up momentum, selling out marquee clubs across the country and landing in-demand festival gigs.

The Duo reached their broadest audience during the summer of 2006 when they scored an amphitheater tour with Gordon, Trey Anastasio and Phil & Friends; they opened the show and performed as part of a band with the Phish members. Concurrently, they released Play Pause Stop, an indie-influenced instrumental opus that sounded more like Explosions in the Sky than the Grateful Dead or Phish.

That fall, Benevento organized a weekly residency at Tonic and kick-started his solo career. Never one to take himself too seriously, he sold autographed keys from his butchered organ during the run. Benevento’s Tonic residency resulted in a live album and laid the groundwork for his eponymous trio. (For the first few years, Reed Mathis served as his steady bassist while Critters Buggin member Matt Chamberlain and The Slip’s Andrew Barr usually alternated drum duties.)

Besides the use of bass guitar, the main difference between Benevento’s trio and his work with Russo was his emphasis on acoustic piano. He reclaimed those sounds from the jazz world by meshing them with circuit-bent toys that often rested on top of the piano. The Duo held on for another year or so but eventually faded away as their individual goals started to drift. Some of the songs off Benevento’s 2008 solo studio debut Invisible Baby – conceived around the same time as Benevento’s first daughter – were actually originally written with The Duo in mind.

“We tried to figure [the new Duo material] out and write some more parts for those songs together – it was the early stages of the trio,” Benevento said in 2011. “The Duo was fizzling out – and then really fizzled out to one show per year – and the trio was taking off. We started playing ‘Atari’ and ‘Bus Ride’ with The Duo but when I played [the uptempo electro-jam] ‘The Real Morning Party’ for Joe, he just started laughing. He put his head down and said, ‘What else you got? I can’t play that. Are you crazy!’ [Laughs.] But Reed was like, ‘I love this song. I want to throw my hair back and bask in the sunshine.’” (Anyone looking for deeper fractures in their relationship should know that Russo asked Benevento to play his wedding last year and that the two still regularly see each other.)

Photo by Dino Perrucci

Even at the height of The Duo’s popularity, Benevento busied himself with a range of projects that continued as his solo career took off. In addition to numerous tours with his constantly evolving trio, Benevento performed in the instrumental, ?uestlove-endorsed Led Zeppelin cover project Bustle in Your Hedgerow with Russo, guitarist Scott Metzger and Ween bassist Dave Dreiwitz. As if to emphasize his varied interests, he joined both the freak-jazz group Garage a Trois – with Galactic drummer Stanton Moore, saxophonist Skerik and percussionist Mike Dillon – and the avant-folk band Surprise Me Mr. Davis with Nathan Moore and The Slip. He participated in a range of jam sessions and – even though he was selling out far larger venues – honed his chops through free, public jam sessions in tiny spaces like Brooklyn’s Bar 4.

“We used to call it ‘mental floss,” ’ Benevento says of his free gigs. “You essentially can’t play a wrong note, but you end up playing wrong notes. You’re trying not to try, just really getting at it, trying to improvise and play music spontaneously – be weird and childlike. Just close your eyes and go.”

In many ways, Benevento’s jazzy, wordless melodies and ‘80s-influenced keyboard firecracker bursts are 180 degrees from the pastoral, rootsy, harmony-laced music that defined his current home turf’s sound nearly a half century ago. But as his career has progressed, Benevento has embraced a love of simple song structures and direct hooks that would have made local legends like Helm proud. And, in other ways, Benevento and his comrades have grown into a loose, collective-like ensemble similar to The Band – backing various stars, collaborating on different projects, moving from big ticket events to local performances with ease.

His sophomore solo album, 2009’s Me Not Me, featured My Morning Jacket, The Knife, Beck, Deerhoof, Led Zeppelin and Leonard Cohen covers that were stripped down to their melodies. He transposed those diverse influences on 2010’s mostly original Between the Needles and Nightfall – the album also includes a well-placed Amy Winehouse tune – mining different hooks for his live show and splicing them together almost like a DJ would construct his set. (The album’s strange title references his wife’s acupuncture sessions shortly before she home-birthed their second child.)

With the release of Me Not Me, Benevento also solidified his place as one of his scene’s spokesmen when he formed The Royal Potato Family label with Kevin Calabro, who had worked under jazz luminary Joel Dorn. Though the label has expanded its reach, their first signings were drawn from Benevento’s inner circle – Nathan Moore, Yellowbirds and Garage a Trois. He jokes that the label is “all Kevin’s thing” but his friendships are tied to Royal Potato Family’s roots. During a recent trip, Moore stayed at the Beneventos’ and his kids wouldn’t stop asking for the singer when he left. ( “They take after their mother,” Benevento deadpans about his wife’s love of the folk musician’s songs.)

As he’s out in a rowboat on Parade Pond, Benevento finds himself doing business with another friend. Paul Green – the founder of School of Rock and the inspiration for Jack Black’s character in the film of the same name – calls about using one of the keyboardist’s songs in a forthcoming movie promo. (Benevento gives him a “bro-deal” on it.)

“It’s a delicate balance all the time,” says Benevento later in reference to the demands of music and business and his stoner-like desires to simply relax and enjoy the environment around him. “Sometimes I think, ‘Do I want to go out there and write something? Nah, I’m just going to chill here and lay down!’ “It’s a long process of going down the road – of traveling, of performing – and there are a lot of things to get over, a lot of milestones,” he continues, staring at his studio through his living room window. “Sometimes you don’t realize how easy it can be or how music should really be universal; how you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but just try to fit in and be unique at the same time.”

Photo by Michael Weintrob

Benevento started work on TigerFace on a whim in late 2010. Chamberlain reached out while in New York for a gig with Brad Mehldau. “Whenever Matt texts me, I feel like we should record,” says Benevento. (He cites a missed recording session with Phish drummer Jon Fishman as the moment he realized he needs to jump on these types of opportunities.) They grabbed Dreiwitz, went out for sushi and sake, and ended up recording until 2 a.m. at Pavement producer Bryce Goggin’s Trout studio space. (Since meeting Benevento through Anastasio, Goggin has overseen many of the keyboardist’s projects.)

During his next trip to Los Angeles, he ducked into the same studio where The Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds and laid down another set of tracks. He spent the next year and a half fine-tuning the recordings, adding guests and finishing his thoughts. Then, he “frankensteined” it all together. As a testament to Benevento’s distinct style, he managed to make an album that featured appearances by Dreiwitz, Chamberlain, Mathis, Gordon, Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s Nick Kinsey, Tortoise’s John McEntire, Traction Avenue Chamber Orchestra’s Ali Heinwein and Antibalas’ Stuart Bogie sound cohesive.

For the first time on one of his own recordings, Benevento also worked with a vocalist on two tracks: Rubblebucket’s Kalmia Traver. Benevento and his wife wrote some of the lyrics together, sketched out their vocal lines while they had friends over and recruited Traver, who has the “high, thin voice of Debbie Harry crossed with Satomi [Matsuzaki] from Deerhoof.”

Two unforeseen elements impacted the recording of TigerFace: Benevento moved his family from their Brooklyn home to Saugerties and an analog-to-digital converter broke. “I couldn’t really work on the album for five months,” he admits. “So I made notes on every song on the record. I had a chance to sit with everything and really listen. I got nitpicky with the way it sounded. It was a no-pressure record for me.”

While TigerFace is filled with a mix of piano, Wurlitzer and whacky toys – as well as the usual abstract titles – it is also Benevento’s most fully realized album. The two songs with vocals, “Limbs of a Pine” and “This Is How It Goes,” are delicate, thoughtful slices of indiepop; “Fireworks” flirts with some Animal Collective-style fuzz and “Escape Horse” would sound like Radiohead if it had a prominent electric guitar. Much of the record feels loose, without sounding live. Benevento almost released TigerFace under the pseudonym Human Assembly – a reference to a new religion his wife joked about starting – but ultimately decided to embrace his new sound.

He continues to tweak his live band, too. Benevento’s trio now features drummer Andy Borger (Tom Waits, Norah Jones) and Dreiwitz. Established sidemen with dual roots in rock and improvisation, they’ve helped Benevento streamline his show into a tight 90-minute set. They use pre-recorded tracks to recreate the album’s vocal parts and support his songs, while still stretching out from time to time.

“Getting older and having kids – you don’t want to write so abstractly,” Benevento says while strolling through his property. “Whether it’s for 500 or 5,000 people, I would hope my show’s entertaining and good quality. You’re crossing this line of jazz and rock – you have to keep people engaged.

Maybe I’m slow-paced if it takes me a long time for something a little above average to pop up,” he says during an uncharacteristic moment of introspection. “Sometimes when you get too heady on your own trip, you can really lose your force. With this record, I thought, ‘Would my mom or dad like this song? Would my [band] talk over it in the van or listen?’”

Two of his longtime projects remain at-large: Surprise Me Mr. Davis and The Duo. Davis, as he calls the super group, plays on occasion but the band is sitting on their first full-length album. “Everyone’s been waiting for the right time to put it out, which maybe is a terrible idea because maybe we’ll just never put it out because there’s never a right time,” he says with a mischievous laugh.

And though he continues to work with Russo in Bustle, they haven’t played a proper electric Duo show since 2008. They jammed a little in Benevento’s studio when Russo stayed over, but the project is still on the back burner. Russo’s been busy, too, playing drums in Furthur since 2009.

“I was like, ‘That’s all we need to do, just come up here, record, whatever,” Benevento says of their recent jam session. [Joe could leave] and I’ll fuck with it. Everyone’s really busy but it’ll come back at the right time and I can see us spending weeks rehearsing. Andrew Barr had a great idea: We should do an old-school Duo/Slip tour as soon as our record-label contracts run out. We’ll own our music, sell our records and make back all the profits. That’s the goal: Duo/Slip tour 2018.” [Laughs.] “Personally, it’s a good time for me to be doing whatever it is that I’m doing with my own band,” he says, shifting to a more serious tone. “It’s a good feeling of taking charge of your own brain, figuring out how you’re going to write music on your own.”

As always, Benevento is full of ideas. He’s thought about re-recording some of his older songs with vocals – or even covering The Duo with his trio. Some of his friends have suggested that he start a music camp or mini-Midnight Ramble on his property – and to do that he’d need to expand his driveway. He’s still working on his current live set and he’s not afraid to have fans change the way that they perceive his music.

“I am enjoying the fact that I am on empty – I have an abundance of ideas,” he says, before pausing to rephrase his thoughts and laugh. “I am doing a million things, so I shouldn’t say I’m on empty – that sounds bad, like I’m drained. I am simmering in this blank space where I can just be happy with having nothing and trying to create something out of nothing. So we’ll see what comes next.”