BECK AND B.B. ARE BOTH ROYALTY IN ARIE CROWN SHOW

Jeff Beck and B.B. King

AT the Arie Crown Theatre

You look for a point of reference to express Jeff Beck's greatnessas a guitarist, but there is none.

Jeff Beck stands alone.

Let's try the sports world, where excellence is quantifiable.Muhammad Ali the night he knocked out Cleveland Williams? MichaelJordan in Game 1 of the Portland finals? Kerry Wood in his 20-strikeout masterpiece vs. Houston?

That's roughly how high Beck sets the bar for himself these days.And Tuesday night, relegated to the semiwindup slot for the B.B. KingMusic Festival at the Arie Crown Theatre, he vaulted effortlesslyover his impossibly high standards. Despite suffering some …