Wonder’s still the real thing

“If I were Justin, I would have handled it differently,” quipped Stevie Wonder at the start of a rare and intimate show at the House of Blues on Friday.

Appearing as part of an American Express-sponsored series of Grammy-week shows benefiting music education programs, Wonder showed that he could teach Justin Timberlake a lot more than just how to deal with the Super Bowl Nipplegate fallout. In fact, if American Express really wants to promote music education, a video of this concert could teach volumes to anyone from a preschool beginner right up through Timberlake himself.

Wonder may be more than 25 years from his last truly essential recordings, but his body of work -- especially the music he made in the early and mid-’70s -- remains as singular and significant as the prime works of the Beatles and Bob Dylan in terms of artistry and originality, and nearly so in terms of pop music impact. Friday he glided through a set drawn largely from that period, his voice as silky and supple as ever, his mood at once focused and playful.

With an 11-member band that made the music sound renewed, Wonder was nothing short of magnetic with his instinctual meld of soul, pop, gospel, jazz and Latin funk, and his balance of joyful love odes (“As”), fiery social commentary (“Higher Ground,” “Superstition”) and personalized tributes to other giants, Duke Ellington (“Sir Duke”) and Bob Marley (“Master Blaster”). He punctuated it all with lighthearted instrumental interludes and audience call-and-responses. And it all relied on Wonder’s exceptional gifts -- no samples, no hired-gun writers and producers, no choreography or stage effects.

It was the kind of night that makes one, well, wonder about the sad state of popular music. In a world that has a Stevie Wonder, how can record executives stand behind 99% of what they release? How can radio programmers promote rampant banality? And mostly, how can any of us settle for what’s on the sales charts today?