No wonder Tiger Jam entertains: Stevie's back
After too-long a concert break, musical genius performs for 7,000-plus at golfer Woods' annual charity event

DOUG ELFMAN
May 23, 2005

Braids plowed down Stevie Wonder's back to his waist.
Black glasses separated his sightless eyes from an adoring crowd of thousands. He held Tiger Woods' hand and there they stood on stage for Tiger Jam, the concert event that raises $1 million each year for children's causes that Woods, the golf champ, champions.

"The most important thing we can do as men and women is make the investment in children," Wonder said. "I love you to pieces."

This is when Wonder, 55, shook the dust off his long break from concert performances, a break that has lasted more years than is acceptable, and he sang and played piano again. "Superstition." "Master Blaster (Jammin')." "Higher Ground." "Sir Duke." "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours." "Overjoyed." "Ribbons in the Sky."

His voice sounded as it has on the radio for 30-some-odd years, a living study in full dynamics. If you were to have frozen any five-second moment of his singing for scrutiny, you'd find his range changing in volume, meter, timbre, phrasing and vibrato constantly and in combinations no pop star replicates. His voice box strung a symphony of soul.

His hands bounced familiar and lovely melodies on a piano and a synthesizer. Horn players shot '70s-Stevie crisp-funk into "Master Blaster," "I Wish" and "Sir Duke" -- a style terribly absent in 2005.

Old lyrics resonated: "Powers keep on lyin', while your people keep on dyin'. World keep on turnin'."

There were new songs. He swathed a pretty one in the refrain, "I can't imagine love without you," with a melody as rich as a standard, and piano lines sewn fit for a Sinatra lounge.

But the audience roared most when Prince appeared to play guitar on two songs, including the new "So What The Fuss." Then Prince disappeared, as Wonder began another melody so new he was calling out key changes to the band. His synthesizers hiccupped fat and funky.
Drum beats boomed as assertively as rhythms in Prince's old "Bob George."

It was a bizarre crowd, applauding with zeal but not singing along as well as Wonder wanted. And Wonder, rusty at reading crowds, prodded and admonished them with a smile while women sang quietly and men chimed in early.

"Fellas, you can't rush it," he said. "Hold yourself back, like you're with somebody you've wanted to be with for a long time."

This pleasure was possible because of Woods' charity, Mandalay Bay and the financial backer, the telecommunications company SBC. "Tiger Jam" may be a cause, but it has become reliably fun. Last year, Prince rocked it. Before that came great shows by Christina Aguilera, LeAnn Rimes and John Mellencamp.

Raising money for charity meant scouting disposable income. Before the concert, donors lined a red carpet in a roped-off hotel hallway. They watched Conan O'Brien, Teri Hatcher and Kevin James walk a red carpet for news photographers.

Next, donors filtered into a warmly lit banquet room to buy auction and silent-auction items. Guitars signed by Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac and Beach Boy Brian Wilson fetched $10,000 each for a Woods-touched charity, the Pediatric Epilepsy Project at UCLA. One woman was overheard saying she spent $1,500 for tickets to the Grammys. She didn't know where the Grammys take place; she bought the tickets for her 12-year-old son.

VIPs drank martinis that bartenders poured down a tube running through an ice sculpture the size of a car wheel and dimpled like a golf ball. They ate filet mignon medallions with crawfish bordelaise sauce, and warm blackout cake bread pudding, while a jazz-trio chanteuse sang "Misty" and "Satin Doll."

In a men's room, a man in khakis turned to another man in khakis and played up his night's proximity to
Woods: "Tiger and me are like THIS."

They laughed. They paid. A charity benefited. And 7,760 fans screamed on their feet for a few musical geniuses.