Amazon.com
A low-key, unadorned, and unaffected glimpse of a 1992 concert,
Rickie Lee Jones: Live at the Wiltern Theatre is visually indistinct and unremarkable, lit only with a blue light that's appropriate to the bluesy, soulful songs that Jones does best. As anyone who has followed her career knows, we aren't here for the decor; we're here to listen to her music and lyrics, which is precisely what Jones delivers. There's no polite banter in between tunes as she and her backup band breeze through a resumé of 13 songs, six composed by Jones and pulled primarily from her first two albums. She also flirts and cajoles with her audience on a playful riff of "Makin' Whoopee" and Jimi Hendrix's "Up from the Skies." She turns in some jazzy scat on "Dat Dere" and some ska on "Love Is Gonna Bring Us Back Alive." While she certainly struts her stuff on other people's songs, the best is saved for her own compositions. Her work, amply on display throughout this hourlong show, includes "Coolsville," "Easy Money," "It Must Be Love," and "The Last Chance Texaco" as well as a gorgeous piano riff that opens "We Belong Together." These more than compensate for the minimalist milieu and lack of polite chat. When she soars through a quintessential Jones song, "Don't Like Goodbye," viewers won't much feel like saying goodbye either.
--Paula Nechak
