NEW YORK TIMES, July29, 2011 — Aretha Franklin isn’t letting medical problems sideline her anymore. At Jones Beach Theater on Wednesday night she let fly a voice with its power, range and improvisational spirit fully alive. Her songs were about the strength and the value of a good woman’s love, freely given, and about the healing powers of faith. She sang about earthly and divine ecstasy, and she sang simply to exult in her voice.
In November Ms. Franklin, 69, canceled six months of public appearances. She had surgery to relieve what was initially reported to be pancreatic cancer, but which she later stated was not that disease but only severe abdominal pain. On Wednesday night, wearing a caftanlike, gold-trimmed white dress for a Greek goddess look, she wasn’t dancing much onstage. Her left foot was in an unglamorous blue medical shoe, treating a recently broken toe, though she had a glittery high heel on the right until she kicked it off to work the pedals on the piano.
The concert was geared to Ms. Franklin’s best impulses. “Let’s get this thing to workin’/There’s no reason to wait,” were the first words she sang, in “Get It Right,” and she lived up to them. Her gospel-charged rhythm section — including her son Teddy Franklin on guitar, and a woman specializing in tambourine — was attached to a big band, not the strings that have sometimes gummed up her live shows. The set mingled assertive, lusty 1960s hits with ballads that let her pour out velvety, long-breathed phrases; “How Long I’ve Been Waiting,” the new single from her 2011 album, “Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love” (Aretha’s Records), defies current radio formats, but onstage it was all slow-motion sensuality.
Throughout the set — actually, two mini-sets with a 10-minute offstage break for Ms. Franklin while the band played an instrumental — her voice was fearlessly and rightfully exposed. She and her backup singers shared lavish, extended harmony codas in “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “Day Dreaming,” cascading through octaves. She easily navigated all the chromatic twists, leaps and sprints of “Moody’s Mood for Love.” She was tart and percussive in “Chain of Fools,” forceful calling for freedom as “Think” kept transposing itself upward, jazzy and syncopated in “You Send Me,” sultry in “Giving Him Something He Can Feel.”
And when Ms. Franklin sat down to play two-fisted piano and sing “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” she carried the concert deep into church. The solace she offered in that Paul Simon song, gentle and then jubilantly soaring, gave way to all-out testifying and melodic preaching, praising the Lord’s healing powers, growling and shouting, diving deep and wailing hallelujah. It was pure soul, virtuosic and inspired.
Aretha Franklin will play a free concert on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at West 21st Street and Surf Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Saturday, July 30th 2011 at 8:55AM
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