Unplugged

MTV resurrects Unplugged with piano diva Alicia Keys

Keys has won Grammys, sold millions of albums and staged major tours, but her musicianship and personal warmth are best appreciated in an intimate setting. MTV's Unplugged returns with the excellent soul/R&B star in a performance, which took place at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theater on July 14. It is a perfect venue for the singer/pianist, who is unafraid to play with the arrangements of her hits or to reimagine cover songs. Throughout this consistent set, marked by warmth, sincerity and a powerful lack of inhibition, Keys convinces that if she's not the new Aretha Franklin, she's a force of equal might and measure. Yowling, piano pounding, hip-hop tics (the ubiquitous, emphatic "unh"), and even a spot of theatrical poetry all have their places here, but Keys manages them with a master's sense of what's song-appropriate. Unplugged she may be. But alone she most certainly is not. For this 72-minute live album, neo-soul piano diva is backed by a full band including a drummer and percussionist, an electric bassist, horns, strings and backup vocalists. Her band is spot-on, her arrangements soar, and her guests complement the proceedings without even momentarily carrying them.

All hits are here, as well as some amazing covers

Alicia is clearly comfortable sitting at the piano or standing behind the microphone performing. It seems like that is what it's really all about for her and this is probably close to how most of the songs would have sounded in their early stages. Performances of hits such as If I Ain't Got You, Fallin', Woman's Worth, You Don't Know My Name, How Come You Don't Call are truly mesmerizing while perfectly remind you just how many good songs her two albums to date contain. On the night Alicia also performed some amazing, and some unlikely, duets including a cover of the Rolling Stones Wild Horses with Maroon 5's Adam Levine and the hip-hop favorite Leave It Or Leave It Alone with guest rappers Common and Mos Def. She introduces new music, including her playful hit Unbreakable (which samples the Eddie Kendricks-covered Intimate Friends), co-written with Kanye West, and the soulful Stolen Moments, co-written with R&B icon Al Green. The thoroughly entertaining finale features Bob Marley's son Damian and others joining her for a unique rendition of his outstanding conscious reggae hit, Welcome To Jamrock.

Perfect balance between old-school soul and contemporary R&B

Neo-soul, by definition, is generally "unplugged," eschewing programmed beats, synths, and samples and relying instead on old-school R&B qualities like live instrumentation and old-fashioned crooning. So it's no surprise there isn't much difference between Alicia Keys' studio creations (as well as her other live performances) and her stint on MTV's once-again resurrected Unplugged. Grumbles that Keys's Unplugged isn't faithful to its namesake is even sillier considering that, in the days since Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora sat on stools and played Livin' On A Prayer on acoustic guitars, "unplugged" has become more of a metaphorical term than a literal one. So maybe these reworked cuts from her two studio albums aren't exactly the introspective, bare-bones versions you might expect from an Unplugged disc. But they are somewhat stripped-down, as Keys reshapes her songs, editing and stretching arrangements to deepen grooves and give her more room to vamp and improvise vocally. Alicia Keys' Unplugged is the perfect balance between old-school soul and contemporary R&B. The passion she pours into this album shows why she should be a lasting star. She might be unplugged – but she's still electrifying.