From Yanni and company, plenty of new age feel-good music

May 05, 2009|Marc Hirsh, Globe Correspondent

Although their music sounds nothing alike, new age icon Yanni and pop schlocketeer Barry Manilow have an awful lot in common. They're both easily mocked on the surface but harder to dismiss on further inspection, where it becomes evident that their longevity reveals an otherwise unserved audience. Another similarity drove Yanni's performance at Agganis Arena Sunday: Like Manilow, Yanni aspires to make people feel good.

That sounds like it shouldn't even be worth mentioning, but it's key to separating Yanni from the vast majority of artists for whom the listeners' pleasure is secondary to self-expression. For Yanni - who switched back and forth between two keyboards and a grand piano as he led a 20-plus-piece orchestra - the audience experience is all. A song like the sub-operatic "Enchantment" wasn't about laying bare his soul. It was about filling the world with beauty.

The risk, of course, is in overshooting and landing squarely in the realm of the overwrought, the saccharine, and the clichéd, and there was plenty of ponderous new age whooshing in the mix. "Adagio In C Minor" was as antiseptically triumphant as the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and many of the songs sounded like nothing so much as music from movie soundtracks (with an emphasis on "St. Elmo's Fire").

The numbers that featured the four vocalists from his recent "Voices" album tended to focus more on idealized romance. But for their syrupy over-orchestration, Leslie Mills's "Before the Night Ends" and Chloe Lowery's comparatively sultry "Kill Me With Your Love" would have suited a pop diva along the lines of Leona Lewis. With his leather pants, unbuttoned shirt, and demeanor of an unwelcome suitor, Ender Thomas epitomized the worst stereotypes of Latin sleaze as he sang overcooked Shakira castoffs like "Desire" and "Quédate Conmigo."

Still, it was hard to deny the music's sporadic effectiveness. Before dissolving into dreamy minor-key treacle, Lowery's "Change" offered a welcome, Portishead-like chilliness, and "Marching Season" (which crossed Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo à la Turk" with Mason Williams's "Classical Gas") found Yanni pounding out rapid handfuls of piano in 7/8 time.

Even the numerous instrumental solos served the songs rather than simply existing as athletic workouts designed to impress. At the heart of it all was Yanni, smiling broadly amid the pan-global pop music he created in the hopes of making everyone happy.