Concert review: Stevie Wonder
Saturday, 31 October 2009 08:00 | 
Author: Jerome Langston | 
“Bird of Beauty” is a relatively little known Stevie Wonder gem that has been covered by esteemed jazz artists including vocalist Nnenna Freelon. It’s a Stevie classic no doubt, rife with clever metaphors and an enviable melody. Yet it would appear on paper to be a strange choice of song to begin a concert with, for an iconic pop/soul phenom who has landed 30 Top 10 pop hits and countless more R&B chart-toppers for good measure. The Motown Legend also has 22 Grammy Awards, the most of any solo artist, induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and an Oscar. There are only a very small handful of artists within the entire history of recorded music, who can boast of comparable accomplishments. So why would Wonder begin his two hour set with a song that few people in the audience would likely identify? The likely answer became clearer to me as the night progressed.
Wonder’s concert appearance in Hampton Roads on October 25 was his first such concert date here, since his Hampton Coliseum show back in 1982, according to a well-informed fan who was sitting right behind me in the center orchestra section. She actually attended that show, having snagged a pair of tickets from a then local radio station. “Superstition” was her favorite Stevie joint and she sang it to win those tickets back in the eighties. We both promised each other that we were gonna stand the entire show, but peer pressure from the audience won over, so we did sit for much of the evening’s first half.
That wasn’t a diss to Stevie though, nor did it bespeak how enthusiastic the packed house of buppies, yuppies and the rest of us, were for Mr. Wonder’s performance. Stevie’s 10 piece band, which doesn’t even count him nor his 3 back-up singers, had chops worthy of a large jazz ensemble, and trust, that’s very high praise. What Stevie emphasized that night was a near-flawless sonic aesthetic...great music performed extremely well by kick-ass musicians including the Motown Legend himself.
It’s difficult to choose highlights out of the twenty plus gems that he performed, which included massive pop classics like “Sir Duke,” “I Wish,” “Living for the City,” “Boogie On Reggae Woman,” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” alongside impressive covers such as “I Can’t Help It” and “Fever.” The whole second half(based solely upon length of the show as there wasn’t an intermission) of his concert literally featured hit after hit...so much so that the whole audience stood dancing throughout that entire portion, passed the finale of the classic Dr. King inspired “Happy Birthday.”
For me though, as a jazz enthusiast, the most euphoric moments ironically elicited the least crowd appreciation. It is very difficult to play jazz period. So, playing jazz well requires impressive chops to say the least. What amazed me and likely the other, relatively few jazz heads that were in attendance that night, including local jazz wunderkind and Veer contributor Jim Newsom, was just how well Wonder performed a number of notable jazz standards. “Giant Steps” by John Coltrane was soloed impressively as a scat by Stevie, though few in the audience recognized it. And “Spain,” the Chick Corea classic, allowed the band to extend itself and really play, with every musician getting a solo turn in. And that wasn’t it. His daughter, backup singer Aisha Morris, delivered a pretty vocal take on the Nancy Wilson classic, “I’m gonna laugh you right out of my life.”
Beyond the hits that have populated Americana for five decades now, these impressive forays into jazz showed just how awesome an artist the multi-instrumentalist remains. They may not have been the moments that garnered the biggest applause and shouts of “we love you Stevie,” but they provided that knowing wink to those of us who knew his catalogue’s interior like the alphabet, and thus expected a little more than just the obvious crowd-pleasers. And for that, I was “Overjoyed...”
Last Updated ( Monday, 23 November 2009 21:58 )
