A Night of Mostly G Flat and B Sharp

Say this for Kenny G: Though his music may lack gumption and daring, the man himself doesn’t. He may go down in pop annals as the last person ever to risk following Toni Braxton’s act.

The saccharine sax of G (for Gorelick) was mostly filler compared to the superb singing and vibrant personality of B on Saturday night as their co-headlining tour pulled into the Pond of Anaheim.

Braxton, a young lioness of pop-R&B; who is batting two for two in turning albums into hits, gives Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson a reason to consult the baseball wisdom of Satchel Paige: Don’t look back, someone might be gaining on you.

As usual, G stood for Gosh-ain’t-that-pretty, with a mellow and sugary lyricism as the beginning and end of his appeal. Never underestimate the appeal of aural Twinkies, though; with G’s 10-year string of hit albums, ranking him as the best-selling instrumental act of all time, his bankers certainly don’t.

Credit him with setting modest goals and meeting them. He successfully caters to people’s most sentimental fantasies of what life might afford if it were all candlelight dinners and blue-skied, zephyr-kissed days at the beach.

As one syrupy theme played, an Edenic scenario played itself out on a video screen, with scenes of toddlers, young children and mature adults frolicking lovingly but chastely amid natural splendor--the essential Kenny G landscape.

His music is a passport to this pastel world of unruffled sweetness; perhaps his albums fill the same need as photos taken on happy occasions. But that doesn’t make it interesting as art. Critics don’t like Kenny G because they value creativity that reflects upon humanity’s up-and-down lot; only two humans ever actually experienced Eden, and not for long.

Does this mean only woe and strife qualify for good reviews? No, but joyful and triumphant moments need to be earned, as they are at the end of Beethoven’s Ninth, which begins, like creation itself, in chaos and void. Or they need to be placed in a context that acknowledges joy and triumph as fleeting and shadowed states even as they are being celebrated.

It also helps if delight is registered not in the mellow, soft-focus greeting-card moments Kenny G creates, but with a vibrant kick--as, for instance, in Stevie Wonder swinging and hollering his way through “Sir Duke,” or Van Morrison firing up “Jackie Wilson Said.”

Kenny G’s set was deficient even without considering qualms based in aesthetic theory. It was severely indulgent of him to solo at length during a 15-minute grand entrance from the back of the hall, and unbelievable that he would go on just as long in the same vein during a tour of the upper arena late in the show. G ended his opening processional with a two-minute sustained note; it sounded as if a smoke alarm had gone off with nobody to attend to it.

A pointless drum solo by the Buddha-like Bruce “Boo Boo” Carter was strictly a stalling tactic (Ron Powell’s acrobatic hand-percussion turn was fun, though).

When it came to music making, the set fared best during an “unplugged” number that had some swing to it, including a dynamic, bop-leaning piano solo by Robert Damper.

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Kenny G summoned guest singer Smokey Robinson from the audience, and he was a welcome arrival, performing “We’ve Saved the Best for Last,” a duet he and G recorded in 1988. Robinson took a while to get comfortable, but he was in peak, creamy form by the end of the number.

By the time Kenny G encored with “The Moment,” the title piece from his new album, a chunk of the crowd had left--which may have been a matter of the hour getting very late, but could have been a consequence of all that padding in his set.

Braxton offered the duality that Kenny G was missing. A fundamentally joyful performer with a winning glint in her eye, she nevertheless had an actor’s knack for putting on a somber face and blanketing herself in romantic agony (Kenny G assisted as guest soloist on one lovelorn ballad, “How Could an Angel Break My Heart”).

Braxton received sharp accompaniment from a big ensemble of 13 players and singers, plus four dancers who were used judiciously and never eclipsed the star as they shadowed her moves.

Some of the stage-craft was conventional--Braxton brought up a man from the audience to be toyed with and playfully crooned to; later, she summoned at least a dozen more fans from the crowd for a group groove-athon on her sexy current single, “You’re Makin Me High” (the number found Braxton cavorting in her fourth and most striking outfit of the night, a tight, white body stocking). Her easy, welcoming way with people and her zest for performing made these familiar moves work.

Braxton didn’t have to get by on personality--her voice was the main ingredient in this gourmet pop recipe. She could invest her rangy, effortlessly powerful alto with low-down grit, as she did at the end of “You Mean the World to Me,” send it soaring in graceful upward spirals, or harness her suppleness and force to pull off breathy, high-drama diva turns that would have seemed contrived in lesser hands, but came off as high drama in hers. Braxton also had an endearing way of letting out whoops of delight--even in the yearning numbers--that signaled her sheer pleasure in singing.

Braxton isn’t exactly under a handicap when it comes to her material--such songs as “Un-Break My Heart,” “Breathe Again” and “In the Late of Night” were all attractive vehicles.

But they were no more than vehicles. The writers she uses, including such mainstream pop Midases as Babyface and Diane Warren, are content to provide some big hooks and bare-bones, typically cliched lyrical scenarios, leaving it to the singer to make these worn wheels go. It works well enough for now. But what might Braxton do if she had material approaching what Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and Diana Ross had to work with at their peak?

Judging from the strong reception she got, Braxton’s strategy of seeking new fans in Kenny G’s middle-of-the-road neighborhood is a savvy one. But a performer this engaging, with a voice that strong, is apt to make friends wherever she sings.

* Kenny G and Toni Braxton appear Friday through Dec. 30 at the Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City. 8:15 p.m. $38-$78. (818) 622-4440.