POP MUSIC REVIEW : Bedside Manner : Sex Is Freddie Jackson’s Message at Celebrity Theatre

ANAHEIM —  “I know after this show tonight there’s going to be a lot of doing it getting done,” Freddie Jackson authoritatively stated to his first of two sold-out audiences at the Celebrity Theatre Friday night.

Jackson must be the most unlikely sex god since Barry White mumbled his way onto the charts in the ‘70s. While trimmer than the very hefty White, Jackson’s Buddha-like size and countenance wouldn’t necessarily seem to say “stud love image to millions” either.

But to Jackson’s female fans--who clearly are more expert in these matters--his bedroom eyes and falsetto sighs are just the ticket to ecstasy. There was no shortage of screams and swoons from those fans Friday as he crooned.

Drawing from his four hit albums, Jackson’s hourlong set seemed to concentrate on a specific mood of romance. It wasn’t the rapture of first being smitten, nor the urgency of attaining love, nor its enduring qualities, nor even the full heat of physical love.

Rather, like White’s water bed opuses, Jackson’s languid, pillowy ballads carried a mood of post-coital torpor, those moments between “do me”--as he pleaded on “Tasty Love”--and “Do Me Again,” the title tune of his current album.

Opening with that album’s “Don’t It Feel Good,” Jackson displayed a remarkably nimble, though somewhat glib, voice, continually swooping and scatting through ornate melodic curlicues. It added some much-needed spice to his song selections, which tend to be pretty faceless fare on his discs.

Abetted by three backup singers and a responsive band--with some particularly empathetic soprano sax work from Andre Ward--Jackson’s horizontal hymns flowed seamlessly into each other, occasionally pumped with the persuasive dance groove of “Jam Tonight” or a solid simmer of the Marvin Gaye-influenced “Rock Me Tonight.” But there were only a few moments, on “You Are My Lady” and other spots, when Jackson seemed to let passion rule his voice, with other multinote exercises sounding fabricated. Al Green singing about church is still more seductive than Jackson singing about bedrooms.

Opener En Vogue may have a dubious origin--the four model-perfect singers were assembled and packaged by a production team--but they sing like they grew up together. In their too-short, 40-minute set, singers Cindy Herron, Dawn Robinson, Terry Ellis and Maxine Jones came off like a Supremes for the ‘90s, with matching outfits and dance steps, but funky, sultry, light-hearted and democratic, with all four sharing lead vocals.

Highlighted by the Motown-ish “Hold On” and the togetherness anthem “Part of Me,” their set sparkled with solid songs, rich harmonies and heated lead vocals. The sole weak spot was their clever but cold doo-wop rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” debuted a week earlier at the Foreman/Holyfield fight. It was so unlike the standard rendition that no one bothered standing for it, and so unlike the stirring, personal interpretations of Marvin Gaye and others that no one felt moved to stand after it, either.