George Benson at the Auckland Town Hall

By GRAHAM REID

Odds are that most in the enthusiastic audiences at George Benson's Town Hall concerts last week couldn't name his most recent album, nor realised that the man who wrote himself into their biographies with his sophisticated and sexy hits in the late 70s has toured and recorded with Count Basie's former band members.

Benson crossed over from jazz to clubland soul, funk and pop, so it was the old hits like Breezin, This Masquerade, Turn Your Love Around and On Broadway the crowds had come to hear, and for them - even before he had played a note - the dapper 61-year-old in silver silk pants got a standing ovation.

Backed by a cracking six-piece band - which included longtime bassist Stanley Banks and Donny Hathaway's daughter Kenya on percussion and vocals - Benson delivered a terrific set which shifted easily from pin-drop ballads to full-on funk, and pulled out that mercurial guitar playing which moves from a whisper to that distinctive stutter and chug, and even a little faux-bagpipes in Danny Boy.

When he turned his attention to swing tunes he hit a midpoint between Sinatra and Bobby Darin, and his scat singing reminded you that this was a man whose career has always been in jazz.

The man was all style - he's from the less-is-more school of sexy dancing, as befits someone his age - and as a singer he remains mercifully free of the ululations and vocal gymnastics which pass for singing in the Pop Idol age. Benson hits the note direct and stays there.

From the opener Love Times Love through to the encore closer On Broadway, he was pure class and didn't miss a hit.

Yes, it may have gone on 10 minutes too long in the closing overs of soul-funk, but any show that starts with a standing ovation and ends with people dancing in the aisles hardly needs too much critical analysis. George Benson, still a man whose cool rules.