Trusting the Woman with the Star

Rickie’s in love … with the Lobero. Or so it would seem from her last few appearances in this hallowed hall, and especially her recent welcome return last week. The love affair appears mutual, judging from her rapt audience and the Lobero herself, who, on a good night, can seem like a living, embracing entity.

It helps that Jones, whose long but twisty career/life/musical path has taken some odd, fallow and uncertain turns, seems wiser and more settled at the moment. An aura of earned, expansive wisdom and appreciation for life hovered over her stage presence and musical bearing. 

No irony was sensed when, mid-show, Jones grinned and blurted out, “It’s great to be alive.” 

These qualities and more were in abundance on the recent Sunday night of her Lobero return. The fertile musical company she kept amplified it — longtime bassist Ben Rosenblum, drummer and vibist Mike Dillon, and, most importantly, the wonder of the musical world that is Petra Haden (daughter of jazz bass legend Charlie Haden), a violinist and vocalist with natural, eclectic, majestic gifts. Haden was, and is, an ideal foil and soulmate for Jones, in harmony mode and occasionally helping with the higher melody bits of the RLJ songbook.

Venturing down that songbook’s path, Jones gave us her tapestry of old tricks and stylistic avenues she is known for — the jazz moves, the post-beatnik poetics, and her chameleon-like range of vocal personalities. These are old and familiar sounds, but timeless and renewably grounded in her own private coolsville (to quote the song included in this set). 

From the first tune, “Weasel and the White Boys Cool,” the stage was set for some artistic variants in store. Despite the song’s familiarity, it reveals an unusual structure, almost like a pop-style art song. Even her greatest hit, “Chuck E’s in Love,” defies the standard brand-name pop-radio formula, with moving parts and shifting tempos that add up to a storytelling gambit beyond the catchy hook.

She’s a fascinating bunch of people, vocally and otherwise. She can oscillate between girlish coquettishness, earnest balladeer, teasing temptress, and the worldly, wise, seasoned character type of late-period Peggy Lee. Sprinklings of theatricality sneak into the mix, as well.

Blessed with a jazz-adjacent spirit, Jones doesn’t mind taking occasional risks, in the studio and on stage. So it was no great surprise when an apparently unexpected version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Up from the Skies” went a bit off the rails that night. 

In that regard, she brings a special quality to her interpretation of standards, something we learned from her unique standards album Pop Pop from 1991, whose tour brought her to the Arlington Theatre, where there was a memorable mishap or two, but the music prevailed. 

Her earthy yet moon-glowing approach to standards shone through on this night with a moving version of “Cry Me a River,” with only her voice and bass in the mix, stretched to extra-moody dimensions. Billie Holiday-esque phrasing and textures wafted through, making her version extra cry-worthy, as she sang the memorable, twisty line, “Love is too plebian / you told me you were through with me and….”

She checked in on other medians in her checkered discographic career, including the reggae-tinged “Flying Cowboys,” the title song from her underrated Walter Becker–produced album from 1989, and another title track, “Pirates,” her second album — a song about which she claimed, “I don’t do it unless I have Petra with me.”

It all led up, gracefully, to the climactic song and likely the masterpiece in her book, “Last Chance Texaco” — also the closer from her last Lobero visit last year. She uses a gas station jingle/logo in a powerfully poetic context, as a metaphor for refuge and healing, offset by the disarming key shift from verse to chorus and her inimitable way with a song — especially her own, when the muse is with her. 

And she and the muse have gotten along very well over the years. Performance-wise, the muse was in her corner at the corner of Canon Perdido and Anacapa this night.