Organizers couldn't have picked a better act to close out this year's Ottawa Jazz Festival. Watching Gladys Knight in concert was a bit like visiting an old friend and reminiscing about good times together.
Personable on stage, Knight had a preamble to each song, talking about the early days of her career with Motown Records or just joking with the crowd.
After opening with a jazzed up version of Michael Jackson's "Shake Your Body Down to the Ground," Knight sang an extended version of "Love Overboard," followed by "You're the Best Thing That Ever happened to Me," after which she exclaimed, "I like that song!"
She then sang a couple of numbers from her latest Verve Records CD, Before Me.
The new CD is a tribute to the great female singers who set the bar high and created the songs that have become much loved standards. It is also a return to the jazz stylings Knight cut her teeth on when, just a teenager, she fronted her high school jazz band in Atlanta, Georgia.
After describing Ella Fitzgerald as "the sweetest lady you'd ever want to meet," she launched into a soulful interpretation of Ella's "The Man I Love."
This was followed by a powerful and respectful rendition of the Lena Horn classic "Stormy Weather."
Older brother Bubba Knight made a surprise appearance and gave the audience a small taste of what it might have been like at the Appollo Theater in its heyday.
Bubba first sang an Al Green song and then a funkified version of James Brown's "Gonna Take You Higher," during which he busted some moves that might be tricky for a man half his age.
For Gladys, the first standing ovation came after "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the One to say Goodbye)," a song that earned Knight not one but two Grammy awards.
But it was her close-out "Midnight Train To Georgia" that got the 8000-plus crowd up on its feet and clapping to the beat.
For an encore and to end the evening Knight sang "I Will Survive," and survive she has over decades, still delighting fans with her powerful vocals and stirring interpretations of the favoured songs she has chosen to make her own.
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