{"id":4220,"date":"2011-11-06T13:55:25","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T20:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4220"},"modified":"2011-11-06T15:10:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T22:10:14","slug":"george-benson-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/george-benson-2\/","title":{"rendered":"GEORGE BENSON"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/M-Review-SeptemberOctober2011-GEORGE-BENSON1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4223\" title=\"M-Review-SeptemberOctober2011-GEORGE-BENSON\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/M-Review-SeptemberOctober2011-GEORGE-BENSON1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/M-Review-SeptemberOctober2011-GEORGE-BENSON1.jpg 400w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/M-Review-SeptemberOctober2011-GEORGE-BENSON1-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>G<\/strong><strong>EORGE BENSON<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong><em>Guitar Man<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[Concord Jazz]<\/p>\n<p>As the title of <em>Guitar Man<\/em> makes clear, George Benson has rediscovered his axe. Benson began his career as a hotshot jazz guitarist in the \u201960s\u2014then in the mid-\u201970s, he discovered he could sing. Switching gears, he became a pioneer of smooth jazz and has rarely looked back since. <em>Guitar Man<\/em> offers irrefutable proof that Benson can still play, although all too often he eschews the more nuanced, exploratory playing of his youth for a more universally palatable touch. Covering tunes such as Norah Jones\u2019 \u201cDon\u2019t Know Why\u201d and the standard \u201cDanny Boy\u201d\u2014played unaccompanied here\u2014isn\u2019t much of a challenge for this master. Only when he takes on John Coltrane\u2019s \u201cNaima\u201d does Benson demonstrate he\u2019s still willing to break out of his comfort zone, and he seems to be enjoying himself most when he lets loose on the Champs\u2019 1958 bar-band staple \u201cTequila.\u201d <em>Benson Rocks<\/em>\u2014now that would be a fun album. \u2013Jeff Tamarkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GEORGE BENSON Guitar Man [Concord Jazz] As the title of Guitar Man makes clear, George Benson has rediscovered his axe. Benson began his career as a hotshot jazz guitarist in the \u201960s\u2014then in the mid-\u201970s, he discovered he could sing. Switching gears, he became a pioneer of smooth jazz and has rarely looked back since. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[196,1530,2633,2632,2615],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4224,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220\/revisions\/4224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}