George BensonGive Me the NightReview

George Benson’s 1980 album Give Me the Night completed a journey that began on 1976's Breezin', taking him from his jazz roots and established him as the world's leading jazz-pop crossover artist. A talented and prestigious guitarist and accomplished vocalist, Give Me the Night was, for many people, their first taste of Benson's smooth sound.

Although Benson had been recording regularly since 1963, Give Me the Night relocated him away from the connoisseurs and into thousands of British households. Benson had been enjoying minor chart UK hits from 1975, but this album’s two singles, its title-track and Love x Love, made him a top 10 artist.

With the pedigree of performer, producer and writer on this album, his newfound stardom should have come as little wonder. This was the first release on album producer Quincy Jones’ own imprint Qwest, and with him Jones brought most of the team he had recently utilised to such phenomenal success on Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall.

For a while it was impossible to go anywhere without hearing this album’s hit singles. And what spotless classics they are. Beyond the hits, the album has two further true standout tracks. On the Rod Temperton-penned instrumental Off Broadway, Benson delivers his guitar solo as if it were a vocal line; this was super-slick significant pop-soul-jazz. If Off Broadway was a showcase for Benson’s guitar, his cover of the 1949 standard Moody's Mood (For Love) did the same for his vocals. With Patti Austin helping him out, it demonstrated that he may have acquired a new audience but could never abandon his roots. For this, Benson won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal.

Give Me the Night positively glides. Jazz critics suggested that Benson was reduced to a bit part player on his own album, but that misses the point; here was a player who’d worked with the likes of Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock enjoying some of pop’s limelight. This album also was the only significant time that Benson and Quincy Jones worked together. It would have been marvellous to think what may have happened had they continued, but what the union left behind is really rather special.