up from "Theme from 'A Summer Place,'" the refrain of which is heard in Bobby Womack's title cut.

Leon Russell's "This Masquerade," the only cut on which Benson sings, features fine scatting on top of the guitar part and an interpretation that pleasantly apes Stevie Wonder. If the success of Breezin' tells us very little about the state of jazz, it indicates a great deal about present influences on the popular mainstream. Here is a comfortable but sophisticated jazz, R&B and MOR blend, whose light romantic style ultimately derives from and dilutes the spirit of Stevie Wonder's ballads. (RS 225)

STEPHEN HOLDEN