Stevie Wonder's soul in Rotterdam

North Sea Jazz Festival, the master of the soul made ​​an almost faultless Saturday apart from featuring Joss Stone. The day before, Pharell Williams had merely the bare minimum.

The huge site exhibition reminds Rotterdam airport. From a central aisle, you can take one of twelve rooms (all covered) concert, the largest (Nile, 12 000 places) small places for a few tens of fans. What makes the originality of the North Sea Jazz Festival, this is the opportunity to spend 5 minutes of gigantism in intimacy.

Founded in 1975 in The Hague, the event has moved in this enclave the port of Rotterdam in 2006. Weekend, showing the proposed NSJF Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder, Outkast, Chic, Bootsy Collins, Al Jarreau, Dr. John ... And to jazz itself, Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran, John Scofield, Gregory Porter, Pharoah Sanders, Chucho Valdés, Martial Solal and dozens of others. All in three days, from 17 pm to 1 am. Some 25,000 spectators per night, and all packages were sold before the opening on Friday.

Pharrell Williams is it jazz? No, of course. Soul? No more. But opening all black music gives citizenship commercial r'n'b singer whose producer is the world number 1, with his cartoons in 2013: Get Lucky Daft Punk and Blurred Lines of Robin Thicke, he was involved, and his own hit Happy. The least we can say is that the artist has not ruined his tour to mount: innocuous projections by way of decor, but fagotées competent dancers as the most spectacular element of paupers ... show is his hat scout. The low cost set lasts an hour, during which he recites his success on a chopped beat, a very limited falsetto voice. Nice and smiling, he has all but gifted student supporter of least resistance. Expected to be better? Frankly not.

Boubou. The giant screen under a spectator sitting in a corner of the stage: Stevie Wonder. Pharrell Williams brings in the spotlight after two songs. "Wow, I can not believe it, this is Stevie in person," he says. And add, rogue in likely reference to accusations singing on tapes recorded after his performance at Montreux: "Whatever one thinks of my music, I have at least the satisfaction of having Stevie Wonder with me . Proof that I'm not so bad, right? "That's it, get smart.

The next day, Stevie Wonder has not returned the favor to his colleague, already gone. The same room seems more filled with an audience where sexas fifties and are well represented. Boubou in shiny, shaven except for thin braids hang it very low in the back, the Moses of soul music starts at guitar keyboard with a cover of Marvin Gaye: How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You), in a version of longuette where he blackmails the public. Master Blaster and Higher Ground are raising the temperature, but the rocket is not launched yet. What happens with another cover, Beatles Day Tripper, powered by a group in a state of grace: four singers (one male), a drummer and two percussionists, only two horns (trumpet and sax) but who harvest a monster job . Maestro and keyboards.

Three quarters of an hour following are magical: 64, Stevie Wonder can get away with that voice heat and flexibility intact. The 60s (Signed, Sealed, Delivered ...), 70 (Sir Duke, Do not You Worry 'bout a Thing) and 80 (Overjoyed) parading in a dizzying sequence. A shiver of emotion runs through the crowd with the ballad You and I.

And suddenly blunder: it announces a special guest, the blonde Joss Stone, who took the stage just before him. The British, revealed by a talent show there ten years, is best known in Northern Europe than here. With a powerful voice, stereotypical and lacking emotion, she accompanies the master on Living for the City. When the duo wrap to Ebony & Ivory, it's even worse: the "perfect harmony" which is the song turns into a bad joke. After a strange interlude where Stevie tries with his percussionist Fausto Cuevas, the Peruvian cajón, back to tubes for the final fireworks: Part-Time Lover, I Just Called to Say I Love You and Superstition, with its riff devilishly funky. It is 1am, giant screens give schedules last buses and subways, and the floor is sticky Nile hectoliters of beer spilled.

"Finale". Starting a little slow and error of course do not tarnish the splendor of the concert. Behind the scenes, the communications director of the North Sea, Junior van der Stel, told us last visit Stevie. "It was in 2010, a Sunday, and we had not planned that day, the selection of Netherlands Bays play the final of the World Cup football! A significant event, we were obliged to broadcast. Stevie Wonder had agreed to postpone his concert in an indefinite time, because of possible extensions and penalties. We lost, and her concert put balm on our wounds. "

Saturday, by a strange orange chance, Stevie Wonder concert coincided with another match of the Netherlands, for third place in the World Cup, but everyone did not care. The world champion on Saturday night, it was Stevie well. After singing Jazz in Vienna Monday, the icon of the soul will be Wednesday at the Montreux Festival where, incredibly, it has never happened and will make a stop Friday on the Côte d'Azur, Juan-les-Pins.