Aretha Franklin danced and stepped lightly onstage at the Chicago Theatre on Friday. Sometimes she grinned and simply raised her fists to affirm the capacity audience’s adulation. These were cheerful, quiet moments, and nobody had to declare how valuable they were.
A few months ago, Franklin announced that she would significantly cut back her concert schedule. But, at 75, Franklin is not exactly retiring (she’s booked at Ravinia on June 17). This is after 60 years of a career that began with her hitting the gospel circuit as a teenager and singing in major jazz clubs before turning 21. And then Franklin dominated soul.
On Friday, Franklin reached back to those beginnings and turned the concert into a buoyant autobiography, complete with funny and self-effacing anecdotes. Even if she no longer possesses the highest end of her youthful range, she showed that her artistry was always about more than the number of octaves.
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Franklin’s power came through her timing and easing into lines rather than belting. She displayed this assurance throughout the concert, such as how her vibrato reshaped the ’60s R&B hits “Do Right Woman–Do Right Man” and “Baby, I Love You.” Franklin held back her vocal flourishes on “Day Dreaming” until its coda.
When Franklin revisited the jazz standard “Skylark” (which she originally recorded in 1963), her low-end moans enhanced the song with a deeper sense of yearning. But Franklin’s strongest improvisational moment came when she accompanied herself on piano for “A Brand New Me.” Extroverted blues triplets heightened her vocal warmth.
Fred Nelson III, who led the 15-piece orchestra and five backing vocalists, created the right balance between the large ensemble’s weight and Franklin’s own force. But one misstep occurred when Franklin followed the accompanying singers’ lead on “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” Especially on this song, a sparse arrangement highlighting Franklin and her piano could have been radiant.
As Franklin recalled her church origins for “Precious Memories,” she also amplified the emotional volume. In that call-and-response with gospel duo The Williams Brothers, Franklin proved that her melismatic leaps remain inimitable. Then she preached a compelling sermon about how faith guided her through a medical emergency.
Most singers would have used this religious catharsis as a climax or to try to raise the dynamics even further, but Franklin then shifted gears for the slow groove of Curtis Mayfield’s “Something He Can Feel.” She remains the only singer who can seamlessly blend that chasm between spirituality and sex.
Whatever Franklin’s future may be, her cool rendition of “Respect” toward the end of the night proclaimed that she will accept, and deny, age itself always on her terms.
Aaron Cohen is a freelance critic.
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