My Career in Five Songs

GEORGE BENSON HAS been called the definitive modern jazz guitarist, but he bristles at the mention of such a label. “I don’t make records for jazz critics,” he says. “I make records for the audience. If a song is good, I want to play it. I don’t really care what you call it.” Clearly, his recorded work underscores his expansive and unquenchable musical thirst: Over a 50-plus-year period, he has made both instrumental and vocal-oriented Platinum sellers that span straight-ahead jazz, bebop, swing fusion, pop, rock, R&B and Latin music.

Recently, however, the guitar legend surprised even himself when he accepted an invitation to participate in a quarantine-style recording with funk titan Bootsy Collins on a new song called “The Power of the One.” Over a Bootsy-sized, supergalactic groove, and amid spacey keyboards and turbocharged horns, Benson lays on dexterous, liquid-smooth solos that send the tune into another dimension. “I didn’t know I had it in me,” Benson says with a laugh. “Let’s be honest — I’m no funk master. When Bootsy sent it to me, I thought, I don’t know what to do with this. But I finagled and finagled, and when