The video on the MJ homepage is from Mayfair in Allentown a few years back. We'll play there again on May 24th at 5p.m. This map may help:

Mama Jama's first guitar player was Jeff Sarli. Noted as a gifted stand-up bassist, Jeff's first axe was the guitar. I remember how animated he would get when we'd perform the 'Boot Dance', a tune he wrote based on a South African rythem. Finally, he had a chance to step out front and sway and swagger with the music. He was a charming, sensitive guy and his passing puts a heavy weight on the thousands of musicians and fans whose lives he touched.

Somebody else has figured out how to make a fortune. The folks at Snapshirts will spider your blog or website and make a wordcloud on the fly. For a modest fee ($18 for a custom built T) they'll put the cloud on your back. Sweeeet.

Stanley Kunitz wrote,'Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?'
In thirty years of playing I've been in only three bands. My first group, a top-forty collective from Bizzaro World, lived in the same log farm house in Middletown Md. The members of Pacific Orchestra, an original reggae-rock band, lived and played on the beatific isle of Key West, FL. Fifteen years ago Mama Jama was born, but the members are 'scattered' all over the greater Washington area.
That brings me to the point of this post.

We all have Yahoo accounts and recently have used the Yahoo briefcase to share mp3's for rehearsals, and the calendar friends' option to post our conflicting dates.
Although my tribe is scattered, a smattering of technology can form a virtual bond.

music yahoo reggae

It's a given that dancers will complain about their feet. Go to any
Bolshoi cocktail party and hear the laments from every corner; broken toes, bruised arches, sore ankles. Every story more lurid than the last. Each injury stoicly ignored for the sake of the art.

Musicians play their own version of body-part obsession. For them, its all about ears. When did they first notice that high frequency loss? What gig caused the most damage? How long does the ringing last and what mind game can convince them the cricket chirps are real, not just inside their head.
Some wizened younger players, perhaps growing weary of writing memos to a deaf musician dad over the dinner table, will compare and contrast the latest features of high-tech ear plugs.

dancer music

It was our first winter away from Key West. In our fuzzy collective Pacific Orchestra consciousness, that tiny stretch of Old Town between Mallory Square and South Beach had begun to weigh on us like a Jurassic conch, a gastropod's restraint to our musical destiny.
The hot-air balloon of our egos yearned to fly over new venues, inspiring new fans, and amassing obscene quantities of tainted, old dinero.
Khan, our nefarious leader, pulled a coup and we were offered a loft in Williamsburg, a forgotten slice of Brooklyn. A thong between the butt cheeks of an Italian and a Puerto Rican neighborhood; accent on the 'hood'.

The city was muffed in a chilly December cloud cover that reduced traffic noise to a droning 60 cycle hum as we drove to our first Manhattan gig off Liberty Street. We wheeled our equipment away from the loading dock and into a corridor that had an unusual bank of elevators. Each door led to a different set of floors; if we chose the wrong portal we'd be lost like flotsam in the bowels of a concrete and steel mammoth.
The private party was on the 110th floor, down the hall from Windows on the World, so we pushed the button for floors 80-110. The stainless steel mouth opened wide and we made our ascent. Our first set played out to a disinterested collection of chiseled GQ's in tuxedos and slim Cosmo gals in spiked heels. During our break I wandered the halls trying to find a window that wasn't gray with fog, but every side was socked in solid. It was like being on a cruise ship the ocean had swallowed.
Our last set rocked as the booze performed its magic, limbering the joints and brain cells of the audience. Stiletto heels were tossed into the corners of the room and ties dangled limply around sweaty necks as body's surrendered control to the beat.

It was after two in the morning when the last guest left, and each of us in our own post-gig solitude, started to tear down for the ride back to Williamsburg. Silently, behind our backs, the fog began to lift. Bassie, reached for the light switch. In the pitch black of the top floor of the World Trade Center we watched as the last wisp of cloud swept away.
Spread below us was a galaxy of polished light, but so much more than just a starlight metaphor. The buildings thrust concrete and steel arms through the Earth. Skyscrapers scratched at the soft underbelly of the clouds, their lighted windows setting the night sky on fire stretching on and on until, at 57th Street, a cradle of light nestled the long shadow of Central Park.

The news is dreadful every day. I hug my kids and try to love a little better then the day before.

wtc world trade center 9/11