Commerce compromises soul

There are a lot of good reasons to honor the late Ray Charles. But “Genius: A Night for Ray Charles,” which airs tonight on CBS, is a confused and compromised tribute that hardly makes clear what they are. Which is not to say it doesn’t offer some fine performances.

Taped this month at the Staples Center, the program starts out big, strong and wild with Elton John, Mary K. Blige and Charles associate David “Fathead” Newman ripping through “(Night Time Is) The Right Time.” It’s messy fun and matched in the ensuing hour only by Stevie Wonder’s “I Gotta Woman” and Al Green’s “What’d I Say?,” with the agile Green giving a tour of the land of a thousand dances.

After the opening number, the show quickly detours into what looks like a promo for “Ray,” the about-to-open biopic in which host Jamie Foxx stars, and whose director, Taylor Hackford, is one of the producers of “Genius” along with Foxx. I don’t doubt for a minute that Taylor and Foxx were inspired in both projects by real fandom, but with more clips of Foxx as Charles than of Charles himself, their TV tribute says less about the man than of the movie they’ve made of him.

And I won’t say that CBS has strategically placed its stars for a little free advertising, but we see a surprising lot of Jason Alexander -- his “Listen Up” could probably use a hand -- getting funky right on the aisle. And isn’t that Doris Roberts, from “Everybody Loves Raymond”? It is.

Tom Cruise, whose relation to Ray Charles would seem to be based largely on his having recently acted in a movie with a man who just played Charles in a movie, sneaks up behind Foxx as he delivers his opening remarks. I can imagine this looked like good fun at the Staples Center -- crowds go wild when a star like Cruise shows his face -- but on the screen it’s just bizarre:

Cruise: “You just hoggin’ it all, man.”

Foxx: “No, I’m not hoggin’ it ...”

Cruise: “You’re hoggin’ it! Just going ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ man! Listen ...”

Foxx: “You was behind there?”

Cruise: “I was behind there. Listen, man. I want to get a little serious. I want to pay my love to Ray Charles. Because Ray Charles, he didn’t just change music forever, but he also helped make America a more beautiful and just nation.”

Foxx and fellow presenters (including Morgan Freeman, Ellen DeGeneres and Bruce Willis) likewise describe Charles only in ways so vague as to be meaningless: “Through his strength, his grace and, yes, his genius he helped make the world more soulful and free.” “The record shows that in his remarkable lifetime, Ray Charles could be good and Ray Charles could be bad.” Well, I can be good and I can be bad, but no one’s going to be throwing me a wake at the Staples Center.

On the plus side, there is some music, including a fine house orchestra. Some thought beyond mere star power has been put into the lineup, which appropriately includes a raft of singer-pianists -- John, Wonder and Norah Jones (British pop-jazz phenom Jamie Cullum was cut from the broadcast) -- and singer-organist Billy Preston.

Kenny Chesney, on hand to represent Charles’ country strain, delivers an uninspired version of “You Don’t Know Me.” But Usher doesn’t fare that much better with “Georgia On My Mind,” the sort of mispairing of singer and style that can leave even major artists looking like contestants on “Star Search.”

And then there is Willis, who has (his word) “begged” himself a chance to sit in with veterans B.B. King and Preston, alongside whom he blows some unobjectionable blues harp. But while he stays modestly out of their way, his very presence is a kind of metaphor for what goes wrong when music meets Hollywood.

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‘Genius: A Night for Ray Charles’

Where: CBS

When: 9 to 10 tonight.

Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages).

Jamie Foxx...Host

Executive producers, Ken Ehrlich, Randy Phillips, Taylor Hackford, Stuart Benjamin, Jamie Foxx, Jaime Rucker King, Marcus King. Director, Bruce Gowers. Writers, KeEhrlich and David Wild.