THE BOHO DANCE

By Guy Garcia

PERFORMER: RICKIE LEE JONES

ALBUM: TRAFFIC FROM PARADISE

LABEL: GEFFEN

THE BOTTOM LINE: Back on personal turf, Jones captures fallen angels and broken hearts in strands of vivid poetry.

Long before ''cool'' got hot and poetry became the latest MTV fad, Rickie Lee Jones was striking beatnik poses on album covers and writing jazzy rhymes about a hipster demimonde of oddballs, outcasts and free spirits. On albums like Pirates (1981) and Flying Cowboys (1989), Jones' street-wise sensibility was balanced and embellished by her increasingly sophisticated flair for elaborate instrumental settings. Then, two years ago, she switched gears and released Pop Pop, a glossy collection of covers and old standards that showed a heartfelt respect for tradition but lacked the offbeat charm of her own material. On Traffic from Paradise, Jones gets personal again, delivering a set of original songs that evoke a familiar gallery of saintly sinners and handsome devils. Low-key and instrumentally sparse, the album has a hushed sound that highlights Jones' elastic vocals and free-wheeling lyrics, which never flinch from unpleasant truths. The meditative tone is set on Pink Flamingos, which describes the denizens of a bar in terms that suggest a watering hole in the African veldt. As guitar and piano skitter above a buttery bass line, Jones sings, ''Look at them -- poking like flightless birds/. . .the spirit cannot wait to fly like the pink flamingo.'' . Wild animals, with their quality of being both savage and pure, are a recurring motif. On the run from predators imagined or real, Jones' protagonists seek refuge in solitude or sex. On Tigers, men are portrayed as unpredictable beasts that can never be entirely tamed -- or trusted. ''Playing with tigers,'' Jones sings over rumbling congas and drums, ''Tracing the lamp with my toes/ Playing with tigers 'til I find out/ Where it goes.'' At once innocent and world-weary, Jones' voice drops to a husky whisper or drawls syllables to wring nuance from every note. Painful memories appear without warning. On A Stranger's Car, Jones promises a young runaway that ''There is no one here to beat out your brains/ There's no one here who'll make you cry.'' Ultimately, though, human anguish gives way to understanding and compassion, and the demons that haunt Traffic from Paradise are banished by the angels of redemption that hover overhead. On the standout cut, Beat Angels, Jones' voice shines like a beacon over roiling seas as she asks, ''Don't you wonder where one goes wrong?/ Is it somewhere in a foreign rain. . ./ A man don't know what he's got in his veins/ 'Til beat angels come and take him away.'' Lifted by the unfettered emotion of such moments, this moody album spreads its wings and soars.