Theater Review: Jomama Jones Does It Again

Last Tuesday night, I was sitting at Symphony Space in an audience with a couple hundred people waiting for the precious and beautiful Jomama Jones to take the stage.

I was sitting in the audience with Mr. Keith Stiles of StilesMassage and Cirque du Soleil fame after having been surprised at the door by running into Baraka de Soleil, my good friend Ben's ex and another Minnesota ex-pat living in the Big Apple (the Minne-Apple rocks!).

I'd spent a good part of the previous day and dinner beforehand praising Jomama Jones and the Sweet Peaches. How could I not? When Mr. Kenyon Farrow took me to see Jomama's show Radiate, I was in love with Jomama before she sang her first note. And the Sweet Peaches were so juicy and delicious that I wanted to run up on stage and take a bite!

I'm just saying.

Now if you have never seen Jomama Jones perform...think of Miss Lena Horne come back to life. She is TRUE elegance.

And her music is a magical music ride of funk, jazz, soul, punk and all the beautiful blackness at the root of so many of the musical traditions we consume in the English speaking world.

Once again, when Jomama took the stage, I was transfixed. Keith put his arm around my shoulder, and for the next hour and a half we laughed and stomped our feet and called out a couple of amens as Jomama OWNED THAT DAMN STAGE! With her collaborator Bobby Halvorson on stage with her, the sultry and sassy vocal gifts of the Sweet Peaches backing Jomama up, and some of the beautiful lyrics of Miss Sharon Bridgforth....the Rapture could have come right then and there, and I would have happily gone on to Heaven knowing that I had just heard true art made into beautiful musicality.

Seeing Jomama's beautiful sparkling, playful, teasing, loving eyes, and once again having Jomama's storytelling and truthtelling and spiritlifting swirling into my life was such a gorgeous blessing. Let me be real for a minute...if you have the dollars and some sense....bring this damn concert to your town and let Jomama wow audiences anywhere on the planet that folks have ears to listen. Jomama Jones and the Sweet Peaches aren't just artists...they heal with music.