An hour into Christina Aguilera's headlining set Friday, May 2, at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, she was offered a jacket for a costume change. Already, Aguilera had disappeared for multiple wardrobe tweaks, generally in the form of a different jacket or sparkly hat. But this time, she waved it off.
"We don't need no wardrobe for this show," she said.
With that, she poured herself into "At Last," the Etta James standard that has, apparently with the late James' blessing, become one of Aguilera's signatures. As the ballad wound down, Aguilera grabbed hold of one full-bodied, clarion note, held it for multiple seconds, staggered it, shook it, then took it up high. It was goosebump-inducing. She would have done well to trade away more pop excess for pure expression.
Aguilera was working on diva time. As her 5:45 set time approached, there was no sign of her. A cluster of fans waited on the dirt track behind the Acura Stage, hoping for a glimpse of the star. Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis waited on the ramp leading to the stage, no doubt also hoping for a glimpse of his main stage closing act.
At the exact time Aguilera was due on stage, a black SUV pulled into the backstage area. Assistants hustled two black rolling suitcases from the SUV to the dressing room trailers. Was it a wardrobe emergency that delayed the show?
Several minutes later, after a clothes rack and portable steamer had been trundled up the ramp, it was finally star time. As a film crew recorded the scene, Aguilera emerged from her trailer, flashed a wave and a smile at the fans out on the track, and made her way on stage, arriving 15 minutes late.
She announced herself to what was, for the Acura Stage, a modest crowd -- there was plenty of space in the standing-room-only area between the barricades and the chairs -- with Nina Simone's vampy "Be My Husband." She soon arrived at her "Moulin Rouge" re-creation of "Lady Marmalade"; Allen Toussaint produced LaBelle's original recording (there's your New Orleans connection). She alternately growled and soared, as her four dancers pranced with pink feather fans.
The crowd, she exclaimed, "smells amazing. My senses are sharpened. I've got a baby girl along for the ride." Her extremely short, form-fitting black dress revealed her considerable baby bump, especially in profile.
"I grew up truly loving blues and soul and jazz," she said, recalling how she shopped for old records in Pittsburgh as a young girl. "I don't get to let loose in my genre, pop."
She said this as she wielded a riding crop and prepared to curl up on a silver sofa -- to my knowledge, the only sofa ever deployed on the Acura Stage -- with Nina Simone's "Sugar in My Bowl." She had never sung it at a show, she said. Her voice was almost too bold for it.
She was back on her feet for the sass and steps of "Ain't No Other Man." For "Candyman," she costumed in a nautical theme; the bouncy pop arrangement recalled the Andrews Sisters, transported several decades into the future.
During another costume change, the band jammed on a James Brown riff while the two male dancers spun and twirled. Aguilera soon strode out with purpose and, without warning, bent over and belted the opening line of Brown's "It's a Man's World," which she famously rocked at the 2007 Grammy Awards. It was the sort of meaty vocal that takes full advantage of her power.
She first started singing B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone" at weddings and block parties when she was a little girl, "too young to know what the hell I was talking about." She knows now, even if "The Thrill Is Gone" felt too familiar.
In 2013, Aguilera recorded a new version of indie-pop duo A Great Big World's "Say Something," a forthright, unadorned break-up ballad. She and the duo's principals, Ian Axel and Chad Vaccarin, subsequently performed "Say Something" on "The Voice."
Axel and Vaccarin also joined her at Jazz Fest. With just piano, synthesized strings and voices, they re-created the song's striking intimacy. Aguilera sat on a stool near Axel's piano; their voices harmonized seamlessly. She soared up high, then glided back down. They finished with a whisper. It was easily a show highlight, evidenced by the many cellphone cameras that recorded the moment.
It was at this point -- perhaps inspired by the power of simplicity -- that she waved off the costume change and teed up "At Last." She absolutely deserves to, and should, sing "At Last."
The subsequent "Whole Lotta Love," not so much. Her guitarists raised an appropriately mighty racket, but her shouting over the din accomplished little. It is best left to Robert Plant, as he affirmed last weekend.
Similarly, a stab at Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger," normally the province of her fellow "Voice" judge Adam Levine, was pointless; she actually sang very little of it, especially the chorus.
As the 7 p.m. scheduled stop time came and went, Aguilera seemed determine to break the record for Acura Stage tardiness set last weekend by Carlos Santana. She was also as chatty as Santana, substituting saccharine, feel-good affirmations for his spacey non sequiturs. As with Santana, this was valuable time wasted. Unlike Santana's, her show felt more like a succession of individual components, rather than a cohesive whole.
The final two components were strong. She articulated a lovely "Beautiful," her statement of esteem and resolve for those who may lack such qualities. And she and the band stomped through the tough swagger of "Fighter," in which she draws strength from a backstabber who would have brought her down.
At this stage of her career and life, Aguilera may be too far down the pop-diva road to turn back. She is not a blues or jazz singer like her heroes. Stripping away all the make-up and costumes and platitudes and artifice may not be an option, at least not to her and her people.
The task, then, for fans and listeners, is to sift through the glitz to seek the real gems. They can be found. If only there were more of them.
Music writer Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@nola.com or 504.826.3470. Follow him on Twitter @KeithSpera.