MORRISON--A SOUL MAN RETURNS TO UNIVERSAL

Van Morrison could hardly be more transcendentally minded, but he never lets his soul slip away into the stratosphere. That tension--between hyper-spiritual feeling and musical groove-- provided the grist, as always, for the hypnotic hold of the recalcitrant Morrison and band in their return Saturday to a sold-out Universal Amphitheatre.

Morrison’s music has gotten jazzier and mellower with recent albums (the new one no exception), but there’s no less evidence, especially in concert, of this Irishman’s original R&B;/gospel orientation. And he’s among a very few artists whose live shows tend to be more fully arranged than their albums; the 12-piece line-up included a genteel string quartet rubbing up against a two-man horn section and a sublime pair of female vocalists in a visit to big band paradise.

Contrasting with Morrison’s earthy spirituality was the spiritual earthiness of John Lee Hooker, in a rare modern instance of a bluesman playing solo before a large--not to mention (even rarer) appreciative--audience.