JAZZ REVIEW : Pure Pop From George Benson

George Benson’s concert at Concerts on Queensway Bay Wednesday night may have been billed as jazz, but it was pop music, plain and simple.

One of the finest guitarists in jazz, Benson has moved steadily toward vocalizing in the last two decades. In his performance at Queensway, the vast majority of numbers were done with Benson holding a microphone instead of a guitar.

As a pop artist, Benson’s work generally fits into the pre-hip-hop dance category, and his program reflected it, with a series of tunes replete with stinging bass accents, chattering guitar notes and funk-driven percussion.

The hits kept coming--”Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Turn Your Love Around,” “Beyond the Sea”--as well as “Got to Be There” from his current album and a rhythmically articulated “Moody’s Mood For Love.”

It was entertaining, foot-tapping, no-brainer music. Benson’s singing was first-rate, and his riff-oriented guitar playing was entirely appropriate for the style. But the music was eons removed from the kind of intense, envelope-stretching improvisations Benson is still capable of creating.

Even so, if the audience had room to move, the rhythmic appeal of Benson’s music might have prevailed. But the Queensway Bay venue, actually just a grassy clearing on the edge of the bay near the Queen Mary, is incredibly cramped. The sea air may be exhilarating, the view entrancing and the sounds appealing, but all that is hard to appreciate when you’re packed like sardines in endless rows of metal chairs.

Benson also appears tonight and Saturday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.