Sat, Aug 27, George Benson

An active musician since the ’50s, George Benson is a highly skilled jazz guitarist with great technique. So it was disappointing to hear him and other talents on the CTI Record label—namely Freddie Hubbard and Chet Baker—adopt a smooth-jazz sound (that boring background music played in elevators). Still, Hubbard, Baker and Benson managed to transcend the smooth-jazz stigma to create music that’s actually good. Benson performs Saturday with established jazz journeymen, including pianist George Duke, bassist Marcus Miller and saxophonist David Sanborn, who has also tried to shed associations with the smooth-jazz genre. 14455 Highway 16 in Brooks, www.georgebenson.com.