• LaBelle
    LaBelle
Just where Patti LaBelle lands on the all-time ultimate diva list is hard to place. Aretha Franklin’s got that ‘Queen’ title, Tina Turner gets all the unconditional respect and Chaka Khan’s got that love mojo all tied up. But LaBelle has, in a crowded field (and, obviously, mere mortals need not apply to this bunch) embraced reinvention so often and so successfully that she’s almost impossible to categorize. There’s the ’60s Patti (Patti and the Blubelles) ; the radical-ahead-of-its-time funk of Labelle (with Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash) in the ’70s; and a solo career that’s covered and redefined everything from soul workouts to slow grooves to power ballads. Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention can’t be unaware of her … drive.

The through line of LaBelle’s 47-year career, of course, is that powerhouse voice. But for almost half that time, her rep as a live performer overshadowed her recordings. More seldom equaled more on vinyl in her case, but in the mid-’80s with ‘If Only You Knew’ she opened up an entirely new avenue by quieting down.

All of LaBelle’s facets were on full display Fri., March 28, in a nearly full Arie Crown. Strutting out wrapped in mink with plenty of leg showing, she opened the show shaking and shimmying through a giddy, percolating ‘New Attitude.’ A mid-tempo ‘If You Asked Me To’ uncorked what started out as a greatest-hits blast into an innervating evening of complex surprises. The Rev. Al Green’s ‘Love and Happiness’ got an extended pulverizing workout while ‘You Are My Friend’ was plaintive and so openly sincere that it embraced the whole room. (OK, OK—she sang this one through tears, thanking her fans for sticking with her for decades.) Reaching back to LaBelle’s (the group’s) fine swan song album ‘Chameleon,’ she offered a meditative ‘Isn’t It A Shame’ with the announcement of an upcoming reunion tour and new album (something that this fan has been waiting for). And then there was ‘Lady Marmadade’—You didn’t think they’d let her out of the building without that one, did you?—reworked (for audience members to sing with her onstage), punched up and worked out. Even that—surprise, surprise—was hard to top.

It was all very personal, with LaBelle being open about her bouts with diabetes, losing her family to cancer and lots of kidding about her age (she’s 63?) with jokes about her wigs, her new line of beauty products and an array of expensive stiletto pumps that she kept kicking off. Grand diva? No question. Ultimate? Yeah…