By David Callicott

Take The Duo, subtract the drummer Joe Russo, and you have piano maestro Marco Benevento solo. Sounds very Italiano.

“Everyone says that’s part of the reason why I’m good at bringing people together,” says the 30-year-old Benevento. “I’m so used to having big, Italian family meals every Sunday, it somehow makes me a good host for something like this residency.”

“This residency” has been happening every Thursday of January at the West Village’s Sullivan Hall (the new-and-improved Lion’s Den), where each week Benevento has invited a different combo to sit in with him. The players have run the gamut from the Sex Mob’s Steve Bernstein to the funky Galactic drummer Stanton Moore to DJ Olive, and of course his brotherly Duo-mate Russo. As you might guess, the diverse styles and pedigrees of the guests have made each night unique, with the unplanned sets morphing from straight-ahead jazz to cacophonous prog-rock and everything in between.

“That’s the beauty of it all being improv,” says Benevento. “You just play the vibe of the room. Like last week, we had 300 people in there and it was going off, so we jammed ’til 2 a.m.”

This week Benevento will again find himself behind a panoply of keyboards, including his very own Baldwin Grand since Sullivan Hall paid to move it from his home in Prospect Heights to the venue for the month. He’s joined by the sax freak, Skerik (Critters Buggin, Les Claypool) and dueling drummers Calvin Weston (Ornette Coleman) and Billy Martin (Medeski Martin and Wood). For the final night of the residency on January 31, Benevento will celebrate the release of his Invisible Baby, which is out now on iTunes and officially drops on Feb. 12. His guests will be drummer Andrew Barr (The Slip) and bassist Reed Mathis, who both appear on the album.

Invisible Baby was recorded on a whim in August, when Benevento’s drummer, Matt Chamberlain, suggested they spend a day off during their tour in a studio in Seattle. Five tracks were laid down, with three more songs recorded later with Barr sitting in in place of Chamberlain. Benevento taped the original sessions on analog, and subsequently added modern quirks with some circuit-bent toys. He then mixed and edited the album on his laptop and ran the results through Paul McCartney’s old tape machine when he tracked the album at Bryce Goggin’s Trout Studio in Brooklyn. “Before you know it, I had myself an album,” laughs Benevento.

Much like the work of Benevento Russo Duo, the new record will appeal to fans of Theolonious Monk, Air, Radiohead and Phish (whose former members have toured and recorded with Benevento). Benevento shows off his more classic Berklee College of Music training on tracks like “You Must Be A Lion,” while tunes like “Bus Ride” and “Are You The Favorite Person of Anybody?” are ambient soundscapes winking at the psychedelic.
“The music is very creepy and interesting, and it sort of paints pictures,” says Benevento. “It’s very visual music. I mean, essentially I’m just a sound sculptor.”

Jan. 24 and 31, Sullivan Hall, 214 Sullivan St. (betw. Bleecker & W. 3rd St.), 212-634-0427; 8:30, $20.