GEORGE BENSON His sweetly fluid guitar ranges from cool and creamy soul-jazz to fractured hard-bop. But it's George Benson's silky smooth vocals - think Stevie Wonder minus the underpinning angst and an octave or two - that nearly derailed Benson's career. Singing, particularly scatting to a single string solo, on 1976's "This Masquerade" netted Benson the biggest hit of his career. By the mid-'80s, attempts to duplicate this commercial fluke had mired him in the dire Sargasso Sea of smooth jazz. Fortunately, Benson's inner jazz cat re-emerged, bringing his guitar off the back burner without displacing his vocals. A true rarity, George Benson is a slickly commercial elder statesman who can still swing like a motherfucker. $69.50-$99.50. Knight Theater. (Pat Moran)