One of my annual events, a jazz festival, has come to pass. To play the Hollywood Bowl requires amplification, though a critic I read decades ago who used to bemoan "Mike the monster" would disagree. Now I'm not talking "classical" here; I'm talking "jazz", some of whose devotees often term the former "legit". Two acts who bookended my two day event as second on and penultimate were George Benson and a ukulele player named Jake Shimabukoro.

Benson played in the inevitable pileup of pop acts near the end. Prior to him, though, a shout out to Manhattan Transfer, and to their keyboard player who played a synthesizer solo on a tune written by a noted Fender Rhodes piano virtuoso: he exemplified the world the synthesizer has, believe it or not, opened up when his chord-rich work glowed in the Hollywood Hills' pastel dusk with a modulated sense of pitch and tonality. But even the Transfer blared a little, and often times so did Benson.

Call it "quiet storm" or "smooth jazz" or even "fuzak", what can be soporific over the radio (and my esteemed blog mentor had to suffer enough in the work place) can really "thump" in person. Mr. Benson remains a sharp guitarist, though the Ibanez signature model hollow-body often sat on the stand while he posed with the hand mike and sang in one of the same few vocal styles upon which every high profile coach seems to cash checks. The inevitable "On Broadway", though, while it blazed also had some nice dark center in which the band worked stop-start magic. His backup guitarist shined, so we can add "good influence".

Amplification can, with entreaties to the "legit" folks, bring us closer to some worlds, as it did with Mr. Shimabukoro. He played with a pickup which enabled him to roam the stage and, unlike many I see even with acoustic instruments, did not have an armada of effects pedals which looked like something from the master control room at Pacific Gas And Electric on the stage.

But close miking and the inevitable (audiophile term to follow) "gain" let us hear the instrument take vocabulary from the koto on one song. It also brought out "inside out" and "outside in" voicings on his strums and every twinkle and, yes, bellow, from his individual notes. Nothing diminutive came across as less than purposeful.

More music, personal gripes and/or recommended items on the menu next time.