The George Benson Quartet

These days, George Benson (born March 22, 1943, Pittsburgh, PA) is often described as a commercial R&B/pop singer who sometimes moonlights as a pop-jazz guitarist. But early in his career -- when Benson was still in his twenties -- the jazz world thought of him as a guitar-playing hard bop/soul-jazz instrumentalist whose primary influences were Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian. In the early to mid-'60s, Benson was the epitome of straight-ahead jazz -- and jazz purists loved the bop-oriented direction of the George Benson Quartet, a hard-swinging combo that he formed in 196...