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.

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

For the last dozen years we've closed our Summer Festival dates in Bethlehem, PA at Musikfest.
This is one tremendous party with thousands of hyped, sweaty fans reminding us why we keep playing music.

The Welcome Wagon

Our guide to the stage

The act before us, a mosh pit meets River Dance fusion TEMPEST

Larry played to the crowd

...and got a little over-heated

...so he gulped some Oxygen for the next set

Miguel charmed his way into everyones hearts

pa reggae

For 16 years Goose has lauded over a piece of brick and sand on the outer edge of the Baltimore Harbor:

Goose and his Purple Raven's SSR

It's the complete package now, this Bay Cafe.
An illusion of tropical relief.
Not just about tons of sand and scores of palms, but the folks who work the bars and push the 10 oz. burgers. They belie the fast-pace with smiles and Key Westian attitudes.
We played there yesterday and will again on July 17th. It looked like this:

Larry Jiggled



People Partied



Lovlies Posed



Poppa Shone



And one cross-eyed dog wondered what all the fuss is about

baltimore inner harbor reggae

We were invited to play for the Grand Opending of Gwynns Fall Trail next to Ravens' Stadium in Baltimore. This is a unique trail that wiggles its meandering way through typically disenfranchised communities in West Baltimore.

Mayor O'Malley

Strummie, Drummie, and Piggly-Wiggly

baltimore bike landuse

We were the "featured presentation" at the
Fine Arts Fiesta in Wilkes-Barre, PA. last Saturday afternoon.
The opening act was 'A GRAND BALLET WITH CHILDREN AND LARGE PUPPETS'.
One of the puppets kicked my son, Zach, in the butt:

Zach gets the boot

Beautiful Dancer

Drummie asked me to take his picture - Here's his best side:

Poppa

Strummie

Later that evening folks were thrilled by the septuagenarian Bluesman, Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal

pa pennsylvania reggae taj mahal

Last night we played for a private party, sheltered in a hermetically sealed plastic bubble from the April deluge. Quarts and quarts have fallen over the last two days, but the heavy rains couldn't keep away a migrating flock of flamingos from landing on the front lawn.

It was great to see Miguel return. His newborn is home and healthy, bringing the total of Mama Jama offspring to a bakers' dozen.

Miguel

flamingo reggae music

For the past four years Mama Jama has been invited to the Wisp Ski Resort to play a Special Olympics fund raiser called "Tubes of Fire Reggae Fest". The following afternoon dozens of big-hearted maniacs dive into the frigid waters of Deep Creek to raise money for that honorable cause.
Let these chilly pix be this long winters' swan song:

If I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt
Special Olympics of Maryland
specialolympics wisp ski maryland police reggae

Santa screwed the pooch this past Christmas and forgot to bring my eight year old

a Digital Blue Camera

.

Can't say I'm keen on exposure gigs, but if we have to expose ourselves it might as well be a place as groovy as the American Visonary Arts Museum

1. Expand the definition of a worthwhile life.
   
2. Engender respect for and delight in the gift of others.
   
3. Encourage each individual to build upon his or her own special knowledge and inner strengths.
   
4. Confirm the great hunger for finding out just what each of us can do best, in our own voice, at any age.
   
5. Empower the individual to choose to do that something really, really well.

Larry grabs the ass of "Wire Man", "...really, really well."

We played the Annual Wisp TUBES OF FIRE Mountain
Reggae Fest on February 22. ,br>

This benefit for the Special
Olympics was held in a frigid barn on the grounds of the Wisp Ski
resort. Two toaster sized heaters kept one shoe per member cozy and warm.

Good show, will recieved, great cause. But that's not the
point.
The next morning I took my 6 year old, Zach, to the slopes for a
follow-up to his first ski lesson. My youngest was in a ski-rental line
with Achille and Zoe (our guitar player and his daughter). It was Saturday
afternoon as snowboarders and skiers streaked across the mountain side
in various states of controlled chaos. Z was doing quite well so I told
him to stay on the beginners' hill while I retrieved my own skis and
his brother. 15 minutes later I returned and found a lone orange glove
sticking out of the snow like a five-fingered dahlia.

Zach was no where
in site.
The big dog in me howled like a St. Bernard "ZAAAACH".

"Excuse me, is this the lost and found," I tried to hide the
panic in my voice. "My son is lost on the beginners' slope."
"Come around the desk please." said the gracious attendant.
When I opend the door Zach was watching Animal Planet, his face painted
with chocolate ice cream, a half-eaten burrito in one hand a Sprite
in the other, and on his lap a bowl of hard candy. He had gotten cold
when he lost his glove and wandered towards the lodge crying. A ski
instructor spotted the child and brought him inside for a little R&R.

I stayed cool. I didn't fall to my knees and blubber. I didn't
wring his burrito chomping neck. I calmly told him, "OK, Zach,
let's go, your new parents are expecting you home for dinner."

Maternally nestled in the laurel and pine

cleavage of an Allegheny Mountain valley is

man-made Lake Westmoreland.

Locals host an annual arts and crafts festival.

The menu at the food kiosks reads like a Klingon brunch:

* pieorgies
* halupki
* haluski
* kolbassi

We're staying at a nearby Knights Inn.

The only motel in America with 4 ft. ceilings.

I guess folks were shorter in medieval time.

My room has a plaque.

It reads, "Guenivere slept here".

No surprise,

I've heard she was bedded just about everywhere.

I'm always surprised to see Fletcher alive.

Especially at an upscale fund-raiser like
"Taste of the Nation". A pseudo-formal affair to benefit the homeless.

Fletcher used to live in the donation dumpster next to the Salvation Army building, but now he's hangin' out in a leaky barge moored in the Annapolis Harbor.
He must have heard the beat
skipping across the harbor like a stone,
because big as life he was jerkin' and spazin'
to the music, just like the old days.

Some alcoholics are demure, others melancholy,
still others comatose.
Fletcher gets pumped and repugnant.

He yelps and belches, twirls and tumbles,
cheering the band with Heavy Metal exuberance.

A decade ago Fletcher led a band of his own.
The sound was as unique as the instrumentation:

I'm always surprised to see Fletcher alive...

A nine hour road trip up the East Coast's spinal column
dead-ended at Lake Ontario. We close Saturday night - main stage -
at the Oswego Harborfest.

On route, Fala reminisced about life in his hometown, Monrovia.

His band, the Musical Messiahs, played the
big ticket gigs in Liberia; Providence Island, and the Executive Mansion.

For a decade the band members flourished, courting the favor of
the bureaucrats and military who ran the country
with a strong arm. Twelve years ago, long festering
tribal animosities exploded into a full scale civil war.
An insatiable beast slithered from the jungle and struck at
the power elite. Politicians, judges, and military personnel were
its first victims.
A feeding frenzy ensued, and the beast fixed
its gaze on more vulnerable targets including popular artists and
musicians.
Following a tip from a member of government,

Fala fled his homeland.
The following day his house was ransacked and burned, and his children
forced into exile. Soon thereafter, one player for the Musical Messiah's
had his arm severed from the shoulder by a machete wielding guerrilla.
Another was machine-gunned when he refused to dance for a rebel cadre.

Tonight we'll sing and dance for a sea of smiling faces. Perhaps
in those short hours of musical celebration Fala can put aside the
memories of his lost homeland.