The night's other younger performers had to finesse their roles in reinterpreting Jackson's meanings, and their own in relationship to him. John Mayer was tasteful performing an instrumental version of "Human Nature," and though he didn't seem as connected to the event as some of the participants, his presence made sense in light of Jackson's well-known love of rock guitar.
Usher, a direct inheritor of Jackson's style, made the risky decision to croon the melancholy "Gone Too Soon" while nearly touching Jackson's golden coffin, but this assertion of closeness seemed justified when he choked up late in the song and was almost immediately enveloped in hugs by the Jackson family.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, July 09, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 29 words Type of Material: Correction
Jermaine Jackson: An article and photo caption on the Michael Jackson memorial service in Wednesday's Calendar said Jermaine Jackson was Michael Jackson's oldest brother. Jackie Jackson is the eldest.
Twelve-year-old Shaheen Jafargholi was also in a tricky spot. The "Britain's Got Talent" finalist wailed his way through the Jackson 5 song "Who's Loving You," right after the song's writer, Smokey Robinson, had spoken about his astonishment at the child Michael Jackson's skill with such "adult" compositions.
Jafargholi had spunk but not a lot of nuance. (He shouldn't have to worry too much about the media anointing him the next Michael.) Kenny Ortega, the director of Jackson's ill-fated comeback, explained after the boy sang that Jackson had been a fan, and that's why he was there.
Really, though, what made more sense than featuring a child performer? As much as we are now mulling the intricacies of Jackson's relationship to race and to the history of entertainment, we must also consider his status as an avatar of childhood.
The memorial's final number, a group sing of "We Are the World" and "Heal the World" that included, among many performers, both the Andrae & Sandra Crouch Youth Choir and Jackson's own three children, placed Jackson's belief in the symbolic power of the child front and center.
As much as viewers were touched by the impromptu speech from Jackson's daughter, Paris, at the memorial's end -- her declaration that "Daddy has been the best father you can ever imagine" was heart-crushingly direct and true -- it's worth remembering that the child was a primary subject of Jackson's art too, and that we have only begun to absorb the complexities of that matter.
Wonder shines
Memorials often raise such knotty issues. Even ordinary souls, and certainly not ones as huge as Michael Jackson's, cannot be contained within one set of remembrances. Yet simpler moments can also be profound, and this event had at least one.
Playing piano and singing a medley of two songs that seemed to speak directly about Jackson's sudden death -- "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" and "They Won't Go When I Go," a song about finding relief in heaven -- Stevie Wonder found the musical route into unadorned mourning. The Staples Center crowd stayed quiet, taking it in.
Like Shields' tear-inducing talk, Wonder's performance wasn't addressed to an icon, or a set of half-formed meanings. It was a message to a man, from a friend. And in that moment, the man's loss was felt.
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ann.powers@latimes.com
