Sombre reflection, rage and joy

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Greg Kot

No one does joy better than Stevie Wonder. But in the midst of a rare tour Tuesday, the singer with the wrap-around shades and braids cascading down his back demonstrated that joy can’t just be manufactured. It must be earned.

At a sold-out concert at the Charter One Pavilion, Wonder acknowledged the sixth anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attack. With his daughter Aisha at his side, Wonder began at the grand piano with “Love’s in Need of Love Today.” That plea turned into a raging manifesto during “Visions.”

“I can’t believe it!” Wonder shouted as he decried wars waged in the name of religion. “It is not God’s will or desire to kill anyone made in his image.”

The righteous rage in Wonder’s voice brought the crowd to its feet, where it stayed for the hard funk of “Living for the City” and the reggae-fired celebration of “Master Blaster (Jammin’).”

Wonder undercut the momentum with a voice-box solo, and a couple of audience participation gambits later in the show overstayed their welcome.

But otherwise the singer was focused and fired up as he surveyed his career, digging into his ‘70s classic “Innervisions” for deep cuts such as “Too High” and “Golden Lady.” Wonder’s voice is still a wonder, as he demonstrated his mastery of the melismatic phrasing that has become so widely imitated, and so frequently abused, by his legion of imitators (including countless “American Idol” contestants).

Seated behind an array of keyboards, the singer turned the 88 keys of a grand piano into a rippling, rumbling orchestra on “Ribbon in the Sky.” His percussive clavinet carved out a path to “Higher Ground” and he banged out the Latin syncopations of “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing.” With an 11-piece band, the singer’s ability to layer and arrange voices and keyboards into a tapestry of elegant textures and rough-hewn rhythm compensated for the lack of a live horn section on tracks such as “Sir Duke” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours.” His music was informed as much by jazz and gospel as it was rhythm and blues, and he made it all look easy.

He called Aisha to his side for “Isn’t She Lovely,” the song he wrote for her three decades ago to celebrate her birth. Not much was said to draw attention to the moment, but the broad smile on Aisha’s face as her father performed the song spoke volumes. She, like the rest of the world, obviously couldn’t resist the sound of Wonder’s harmonica --- surely one of the most effervescent sounds ever invented.

Two hours earlier, the evening had begun somberly with Wonder invoking an American tragedy and paying tribute to his late mother, whose death provided an impetus for him to tour again. But it finished with the aisles packed with a multi-culti multitude of dancers spanning three generations. “I wish those days could come back once more,” Wonder sang of a joyous time in his life, and on a cool night hard by Lake Michigan, he made that memory live anew in his music.