Keys is the exception: a musician above all. In an era of stars who pose better than they sing, Ms. (The concert was streamed live on YouTube, and clips of individual songs are now at /aliciakeyssme.) Keys’s AIDS charity, Keep a Child Alive during the show a video screen urged fans to donate via text message. Tuesday was World AIDS Day, and the concert was a benefit for Ms. 15, and it squeezed an arena production videos, large band, a superfluous dance bit onto the theater stage.
The concert was a preview of her new album, “The Element of Freedom,” due for release Dec. Her craftsmanship and equanimity are a comfort, a demonstration of what she counsels. She promises devotion and calls for determination through every struggle. Keys writes and sings about heartache and sorrow, usually on the way to overcoming them.
But that same steadfastness has also emerged as a shortcoming onstage more than in the studio, where the sound of her voice is persuasive. Her message, particularly to women, is to endure and prevail. In a career as one of this decade’s most dependable hit makers, that underlying poise has been her strength.
Keys measured every note, every bit of between-song patter, every motion and every vocal inflection, even when she was making her voice sound tearful or imploring or driven. “I know I’m losing control,” Alicia Keys sang in “Love Is Blind,” the song that started her set at the Nokia Theater on Tuesday night.
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