Good morn or evening friend, here’s your friendly rock writer and in no hurry to review Stevie Wonder’s performance of Songs In The Key Of Life At Madison Square Garden, Thursday November, 7th. Usually I write my live review so fast I don’t have the time to have my opinion swayed by other people, But this time rock nyc scribe Paula Iwamoto Schaap was also there and wrote a review, a good one (here). So I didn’t feel a rush to get the story up and began reading other people’s opinion. I read Jim Farber in the Daily News (here) , Chris Weingarten in Rolling Stone (here), and Jon Pareles in NYT (here), apparently the show brought out the best in many writers…
I hate consensus but there really is no way to not conclude Wonder’s three hour take on the double album and EP from 1976 was anything less than a mix of stunt and statement… it is as great as anything these writers have claimed it is… however, it is no better than any of the other times I’ve seen Stevie live performing a greatest hits set. I last saw Stevie in September 2013 and wrote this: “Opening with “How Sweet It Is” for some obscure reason and teasing Doncker with a little “Higher Ground” before “Master Blaster”, then pausing for the speech before playing hit after hit after… or as Doncker puts it “songs songs songs songs songs”. I had complained how Mayer had a derailed a song with a lousy break earlier in the evening and Doncker points to “Isn’t She Lovely” as having a perfect song break. The voice? The voice is magnificent and Doncker is almost jumping out of his skin with pleasure at the entire days highlight, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” with Wonder trilling and scatting upwards.”
The truth is, on stage Stevie can turn on the soul at will and does. I have never seen him perform any better or any worse than he did Thursday night, he is just about perfection and think of this for a minute: Stevie forgot the words to “Village Ghetto Land” and the importance of that is, since Stevie is blind he has no prompter, no sheet music, nothing (Unless there is braille hidden here and there). At 64 years of age he was performing songs he hadn’t played in nearly forty years FROM MEMORY. Whether making a joke about Gordy and his mom deciding to tell the world he is blind until today when he admits to having been able to see all these years to taking the time to discuss helping children with disabilities (the first time Wonder performed the album in full was a the House Full of Toys benefit concert last December in L.A.-obviously, he cares), there are concerns. Wonder is far from simply being his disability but it still informs his perception of the world, it still affects the way he deals with his audience and himself. It is so big, it is so majorly different from the majority of people, it is bigger than his superstardom but not bigger than his music. On Thursday night if you thought about it, and really the music was so powerful you might not even bother, it baffled you: how could he manage this huge band (kudos to band leader Greg Phillinganes), remember all this stuff, and be blind, and have no real crib sheets.
Yes a huge, orchestra size band: six piece horn section, a string section for the songs he used to use a synthesizer, four drummers, two additional keyboard players, on and on… and the great India Arie. I first listened to India Arie at the turn of the century when “Video” hit big, and have loved her jazzy blues vocals ever since and she was great on the three songs she shared. In L.A. last year the guest list was incredible: “Esperanza Spalding, India.Arie, John Mayer , Chick Corea Joe Herbie Hancock “. The two we missed and how last night were Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock.
Stevie introduced the jazzed out “Contusion” as influenced by Chick and the best musical moment of the evening by a hair: it was like the first among equals. Also the second best “Love’s In Need Of Love Today” I’ve ever heard (the best was the 9-11 version when we needed it most), the best “Sir Duke”, the best “Isn’t She Lovely” (he brought out his young daughter, 39 years after writing the song for his eldest daughter) or at least the best horn section on “Isn’t She Lovely” I’ve ever heard.
Rock critic Bill Holdship noted that if you were only going to see Stevie once, this wasn’t the one and it is really hard to disagree with the logic, Wonder’s catalog is so deep even one of the greatest albums of all time performed live is a bit of a swizz. And again, as great as he was, he is always great. If you are only ever gonna Stevie once, not this one. But when you catch him whenever he’s in town it isn’t even a question, then it is a pure joy.
However, I don’t quite agree with the raves I’ve read though I nearly do.
1. My companion for the night fell asleep halfway through, if you weren’t a die hard fan, there are times it asks one helluva lot of concentration from its audience: despite Stevie’s charm and charisma, on stage this is not an easy music though it has moments of ease. It demands the listener meet it halfway.
2. Motown was always the voice of young America, it announced itself as such, it was pop and it was pop culture and pop culture is always and forever superior to high culture. Songs In The Key of Life announces itself as art and it is art but like Charlie Parker did with jazz, this takes the wonder of Motown into adult territory. Personally, I’ll take “My Cherie Amour” any day.
In the battle between Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane, I love em both but I worship Armstrong. More than happy to have seen it, an absolute triumph for Stevie Wonder, loved it didn’t worship it. I would go again today.
Grade: A-
