To cap off her two hour performance, she even yodeled, to the delight of many in the 300 or so crowd, who were so attentive and transfixed by her music, that the artist made a point of complementing them for being a "perfect" audience to play before.

But it was the lack of perfection in her performance that made it so remarkable.At least three of her songs were written in a spiral-bound notebook within minutes of taking the stage, causing the singer to stop to remember her own lyrics, and then repeat and connect them to the melody. She has been writing songs since the age of 6. Her live music is much more emotive and dynamic in tone and color than her 1994 Pieces of You debut album. Not every artist sounds better in concert. Jewel is one who does. So many of her songs, played in coffee houses and small clubs, are elusive for her to recall. She depends on bootleg tapes to recapture them, a comment on her incredible productivity. By now, she has material for at least a dozen albums, with her next recording studio session scheduled for February of next year. She was trying some of the newer works out here, to test sentiment -- both the audience and her own.

For someone so young in life experience - she looks hardly out of her teens - Jewel sings about suicide, child abuse, bigotry, abandonment, the rage that a child feels towards her father ("poetic license", she called it, referring to her own paternal affections), sibling rivalry, and other weighty subjects. (That's why the title of her promotional album, "Save the Linoleum", is so funny.) But she does so with such sarcasm and candor, that the angst seems even more devastating by the juxtapositions in her words, facial expressions, and shrill grittiness that can literally make your teeth hurt, interspersed with a smile so sweet that you almost believe it could charm an Alaskan grizzly bear. She knows how to keep you off balance.

What is so refreshing about Jewel is her openness and unaffected chatter with those in the hall. She hears all the suggestions for songs, makes little comments about each one, talks to you like an old friend about her excitement over going to be on the Conan O'Brien Show (November 28th), "I'm going to play around with his hair, I promise you.", and lets you in on intimate secrets you may not want to hear -- about a childhood friend with a big butt who would swing naked in the sauna, and made everyone smile, but died recently, shot himself out in a field Oh, my. She is so good at deceiving you. You can't trust her. But you'll always love her. Always.

The only disappointment, and it would have been a great coup if it had come about, was that Joan Osborne had promised Jewel that she would come by after her gig at Soma and do a duet with her. It never happened. Around midnight, Jewel asked plaintively if Joan were somewhere in the darkened house. The crowd thought that she was just clowning around. You never know with Jewel. Then she explained. Earlier, at Tower Records, I had talked with Osborne, expressed my admiration for "Relish", her debut album, and commiserated about missing her live performance at Street Fair, Luna Park on Melrose in L.A., and again later that night because of "other commitments". I promised her that I would eventually catch her live. She seemed genuinely sorry that I hadn't seen her perform. It would have completed the circle for me, if she had shown up as the "mystery guest". But it wasn't meant to be.

After her performance, I hung around the venue, not wanting the night to be over. A woman told me about growing up in Skagway, an Alaskan town of 700 residents. She spoke of the darkness of the long winter, of drunkenness, family abuse, depression and suicide. "It wasn't like Northern Exposure, the TV show", she said. Jewel's childhood had also been in that state. She said that she knew Jewel from Alaska, but I had my doubts. As if to balance the scales, a man came over and asked me when I had been in Kauai. For a moment I was puzzled by his prescience, until I realized that I was wearing my favorite T-shirt. We talked about hiking the Na' Pali cliffs, the best snorkeling beaches, and other shared experiences. Music connects people together. It also heals them.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, Jewel came into the lobby with her personal assistant. Usually I don't want a performer's autograph. It tends to trivialize my appreciation of their artistry, but Jewel had begun to sign, so I offered her the two albums I had with me. On Save The Linoleum, she drew a little picture of what looked like E.T. directly on the label of the CD, and wrote her name underneath it. Was she telling me cryptically that she longed to go home, just like the space alien? Maybe. But with Jewel you never know.

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