George Benson has been a favorite guitar player of mine ever since a guitar teacher turned me on to him. The old stuff. His newer “smooth jazz” tunes never did that much for me, but I can certainly understand why he went in that direction. Anyway, he was recently honored by the National Endowment for the Arts as a 2009 Jazz Master.

Here he is with the McCoy Tyner Trio playing Stella by Starlight, one of my favorite tunes (damn, he’s quick!):