Jomama's calling you!

Recommended
Jomama Jones: Endless Summer Live

Jomama Jones, the charming performance alter-ego of Daniel Alexander Jones, is a tall drink of chocolate milk. Balanced on see-through mules she swears she bought on a DC shoe-shopping date with Michelle Obama, rocking an Afro wig and gleaming, self-shimmying mini-dress, Jomama sings irresistibly buoyant rock tunes, light funk and inspirational anthems that often sound like the product of a girl-talk session between RuPaul and Oprah Winfrey.

Passing around a picnic basket filled with candy, of which she demands we all partake, she brings songs of love, of kindness, of forgiveness and moving on, and of choosing one's man wisely by comparing guys to different kinds of horses (don't ask...). Backed up by Bobby Halvorson's versatile band and her perky sidekicks Helga Davis and Sonja Perryman, she regales her audiences with loopy tales and friendly gab and proffers advice such as:

Our ability to love cannot be contingent upon someone else's ability to receive that love. Right now, in this country, we have a deficit of love, and we are running out of time.

Jomama is a figure of radiant joy and refreshing, disarming sincerity. She wins the crowd over from entrance to encore.

Ladies and gentlemen--"and otherwise defined," as Jomama would say--summer has arrived, and I don't mean Donna Summer. It's time for fun!

So go see this smooth little show, just 75 minutes sans intermission. Just enough. If you really can't get enough, there's always Jomama's Lone Star and Radiate CDs.

Last chance: Tonight at 7:30 or 9:30. Get tickets right here.

Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater

Peter Norton Symphony Space

2537 Broadway at 95th Street, Manhattan

(#1 subway to 96th Street; map)

WeDaPeoples uptown

Harlem Stage presents

WeDaPeoples Cabaret

curated by Carl Hancock Rux

co-presented by the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University

and the Columbia/Harlem Jazz Project

Saturday, September 25, 9:30pm

Harlem Stage 

at Aaron Davis Hall

WeDaPeoples Cabaret was created in 2006 by Sekou Sundiata for The American Project. Fusing political consciousness with artistic mastery in the spirit of Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln's "We Insist: Freedom Now Suite."  Carl Hancock Rux curates a raucous night of art and activism inspired by Sundiata's vision of extending insurgent testimony and discourse beyond the academy and into the art space to reach the community at large.

Features:

Helga Davis
Queen Esther
Toshi Reagon
Greg Tate
Roger G. Jeffreys/Subtle Changes Dance Company

and more

with DJ Phonozone

Information and ticketing

Aaron Davis Hall
on campus of The City College of New York
between West 133 and 135 Streets, Convent Avenue, Manhattan

Directions

Toshi Reagon brings the power

Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely--plus their big crew of lovely friends--really rocked the Schomburg Center last night. This return engagement for Reagon's band, part of the Center's Women's Jazz Festival 2010, was precisely the jolt of joy we need, mid-winter, and in the midst of the often demoralizing struggle for truth in this country.

You know Reagon, if you're lucky, as a talented, versatile singer, songwriter and musician with a profound ear for sonic Americana--from folk to funk, from blues to rock. She masters each of these genres with vocal strategies that easily spiral and swoop from the expressively sinuous to the hard-charging, a combination of warmth and mischief.

She's the daughter of beloved singer-activist, Sweet Honey In The Rock co-founder Bernice Johnson Reagon and shares her mom's knowledge of the power of song to focus, unite and mobilize people. If you've been lucky enough to be in Toshi's presence, you know you can't walk away from her without feeling better about yourself as a human being. She aims for nothing less.


Take all that and multiply it by everyone on the two lists below. You're in the right place when you're watching a show where the audience doesn't have to be coaxed to sing along or clap in time. They do it because it just feels right. And they accept every type of song in the spirit of generosity in which it's offered.


BIGLovely's musicianship is all good, with Adam Widoff's soaring guitar work ringing especially true. Judith Casselberry, Marcelle Davies Lashley and the guest vocalists* formed a sturdy backup for Reagon, but each also got her own excellent moment. The diversity of these spotlights was mindblowing. A day later, I'm still having a hard time deciding on my favorite, although the intense Helga Davis--singing of rallying her life, her joy, her fear and her anger, without judgment or exception, thank you--might just be the one.  

If you happened to miss the Schomburg show (tsk, tsk, tsk), just be sure to get over to New Jersey Performing Arts Center where the Reagons, mother and daughter, will be holding court (Saturday, March 20, 7:30pm).

Many thanks and all praises to:

Toshi Reagon (guitar, vocals)

Fred Cash (bass)

Adam Widoff (electric guitar)

Robert Burke (drums)

Judith Casselberry (guitar, vocals)

Marcelle Davies Lashley (vocals)

*and featured vocalists:

Helga Davis

Stephanie Battle

Josette Marchak

Karma Mayet Johnson

Morley