Seeing Jill Scott perform live is a necessity to appreciating the full dramatic range of her music. It's all in the delivery. If she had a nickname -- with apologies to former Utah Jazz star Karl Malone -- it would be The Postman. And she delivered again at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie on Friday night.
Scott is truth in advertising. Her 2001 live CD was titled Experience: Jill Scott 826+. (She even kicked off her set with that CD's lead single, "Gimme.") While the songs can and have stood alone, it's her vamping and sashaying and preaching between them that turns her tour stops into an adult version of show and tell.
You can learn a lot about Scott during her live show. And that's fully intended.
- Jill Scott can hit it and quit it, and then ask for it back and get it. The lady sings the blues, the gospel, the remixes, the everything. "Gimme," like other songs in her arsenal, was retooled to let the well-choreographed band loose. Soon after, she was out of her shoes and into the first sing-along of the night, "Whatever." It was as if she was having a conversation with the audience. Then she would unleash that powerhouse voice, singing arias and in different languages. In layman's terms, showing her butt.
2. Baby girl can cook -- on stage and off. She serves full portions in every one of her songs, and that's before she gets to the lyrics about food. There were chicken wings, grits, collard greens and waffles. Oh, and "recipes off the Internet." Her live show has lots of ingredients, too: "The Way " was infected with funk, some wah wah and heavy saxophone; still others were riddled with unexpected Latin guitar; Go Go showed up in "It's Love"; pleas and exhortations; laments and kiss-offs. But most of all, there were calls to action. "Prepared," just out with her late-July release Woman, was sung mostly by the woman to my immediate left -- and every other woman in the place. It's no wonder she's a working actress. No one can emote through a song and imbue it with all her moods better than Jilly.
3. She lives her lyrics. The night felt like a confessional, for Scott and her acolytes. Scott doesn't ask anyone to say her name, she sings it and waits for the applause. There was more than one shout for "Jilly from Philly," and that was just from the guy a few rows down. But every song had a story from her life attached to it, whether she let you in on it or not. A soliloquy about learning by sitting at the feet of the elders was a segue into an shout-worthy "Golden."
4. She's ride-or-die. Her set was quick, leaving out some well-loved Scott standards. But she had given so much, they were barely missed. "This tired old gal up here is gonna try to sing one more song," she said after returning to the stage to cheers. "He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat)" was the cherry on top. Of course. What's the advertising slogan: Loyalty has its own rewards? That was it. She introduced the seven-piece band and her trio of backup singers, The Pipes (double entendre surely intended), and then herself.
