Transfixed. At least I was by Rickie Lee Jones’ performance Thursday night at Celebrate Brooklyn. The girl at the grand volcano played solo for 45 minutes or more singing her syncopated, wordy-poetic, beatnik jazz.

Even though it’s been nearly thirty years since she won the grammy for best new artist and had a mega hit with "Chuck E’s in Love," there was nothing in the least bit nostalgic about RLJ’s performance. Her voice is in great form and songs like "Last Chance Texaco," "We Belong Together," "So Long Lonely Avenue," "Living it Up" and others from her first few albums sounded better than ever…continued…

RLJ’s voice, though, is really what got to me. It’s an amazing
instrument of surprise. You never know how or what she’s going to do
next. Will she wail or shoo-bop?  Will she be a boho Billie Holiday or
a street smart Joni Mitchell. Sometimes she makes her voice sound like
a sax or trumpet, an electronic effect on a synthesizer. Other times
she can sound like the world weary woman she’s is: someone who’s had
bad luck and hard times. But she can also sound full of girlish glee, swinging on a
swing in her very own backyard.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The songs from the "Chuck E’s in Love" days can only be described as
"wordy poetic." In them, she scats out the names of friends, cars,
streets in Los Angeles. She’s the observer, the hanger-on, the "girl"
who catches everything that transpires between her n’er-do-well friend
living life on the lowdown.

She’s tough and she’s sassy but there’s a softness too: the softness
of a woman who has endured profound sadness and loneliness, always
reaching, reaching out "to be loved by someone."

Unfortunately she did few songs from her masterful album of last year, Evening of My Best Day.
The title song from that album, whose melody, she said, she’d had in
her head for ten years before she was able to figure out what the song
was about, was a high point of the show with it’s poignant ending:

And it’s a good life
from now on
when I look back at you.
A good life
look ahead
the sky is almost blue

Mid-show, Jones’ was joined by a bassist and guitarist. They did
many unexpected favorites and one shocker: "Jumping Jack Flash" and it
didn’t feel a bit weird. It was actually one of the best versions I’ve
ever heard (other than the Stones’).

RLJ looked like one of the band in an oversized denim shirt and
decidedly unsexy jeans. Her blond hair was uncombed, her face bore no
make-up. With angular features and fair, fair skin, she is a beautiful
woman in every way.

The trees surrounding the Celebrate Brooklyn bandshell were lit a
gooey green.  From where I sat, in the front row, I was able to take in
the intimacy of the evening, the attention to detail, the deep
note-to-note enjoyment this woman takes in conveying a song. I knew I
was seeing one of the greats at her peak, even if she is because she is over 50 years old.

I thought it was going to rain, but it never did. There was an
etherial mistiness to this pleasantly cool evening. On "A Tree on
Allenford," a beautiful composition from "THE EVENING OF MY BEST DAY"
RLJ imparts a kind of Buddhist wisdom that was never evident in her
earlier work:

and the golden thread of nature of this is
simply that we are a part of everything
that will ever exist.
to be loved is why we’ve come.
every drop of rain that fell or falls
is always falling
on and on and on and on.

<>

Near the end of the show, before the encore, RLJ thanked the
audience for "coming out and spending some of your life with me."
Girl, the pleasure was ours.

Her new album, a retrospective of her career called THE DUCHESS OF
COOLSVILLE (Rounder) is coming out on June 29th. It’s a pitch perfect
title, for she truly was a high priestess of cool gracing that
Celebrate Brooklyn stage.

Girl, the pleasure was ours.