The Worcester native opens up about his Jazz Daredevil project, including a new soundtrack for a movie that doesn’t yet exist
By Nick A. Zaino III Globe correspondent, Updated August 30, 2024
H. Jon Benjamin has many alter egos. Most know him as the voice of Bob Belcher from the long-running animated series “Bob’s Burgers.” But he’s also the titular secret agent from FX’s “Archer” and Ben from “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.” He’s a pigeon in a Progressive insurance ad as well, plus a chef way too excited about fast food in a series of Arby’s spots. Perhaps his strangest role is one he created for himself: the Jazz Daredevil.
The premise requires some context. In 2015, Benjamin gathered a bunch of ace jazz session players to back him on piano for an album. The catch was, Benjamin did not then — and does not now — play piano. He upped the ante in 2020 with “The Soundtrack Collection,” playing garbled synth versions of movie themes, and even hired a full orchestra for his take on “Also sprach Zarathustra” from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
In August, he took the idea to a new place with the release of “The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of The (Unproduced) Film … Jazz Daredevil.” The album includes songs and dialogue from an unreleased Jazz Daredevil action thriller.
“I don’t know how much further I can go with pushing this concept,” said Benjamin. “But I think that was part of trying to figure out, after doing ‘The Soundtrack Collection,’ what would be a way in which we could repurpose this style of jazz in another album that’s not the same joke.”
Benjamin was discussing the idea with his writing partner, Leo Allen, and Allen’s wife, Stephanie, and they thought it would be funny if the Jazz Daredevil scored an entire movie. “Then we were like, well, we have to write that movie in order to fulfill that joke,” said Benjamin. “That was just an awful discovery, because then we’re like, oh no, we’ve got to write a whole movie just to tell this joke. And then the pandemic hit, and we did.”