December 18, 2000

Red Snapper/Jimi Tenor: London Camden Dingwalls

Everything is left nicely cooking...

Radio 4? Banish it from your mind. Because this evening, along with an unashamedly 'jazz' crowd (thirty, hungover) we have yer actual Radio 3 in the house, recording the evening's performances for a live broadcast. Sunday night chez Dingwalls, then, and all is well. Dropped 'h's tumble to the floor of the bar amidst the fug of Guinness and Marlboro Light smoke, anxious-looking technicians buzz around the sound desk hoping that nothing too interesting takes place.

Cue the arrival of the Finnish James Brown, Jimi Tenor. Dressed in an ornate ankle-length crimson dressing gown and trademark Joe 90 specs, he looks like nothing so much as Kurt Cobain going to a prog rock fancy dress party. Jimi quite clearly means business. Following the opening crunch of 'My Mind' and 'Backbone' he leads his nine piece band into murkier waters with 'Point To The Stars'. Sax'n'trombone solos screech and splutter, Jimi's hammond organ belches out garage rock licks rarely spotted leaving Bobby G's house and you quickly get the impression that this is free jazz sectioned, then let loose due to a clerical error and causing havoc in the community.

After which, normal service is resumed. Red Snapper may be the Caribbean's favourite dish, but never has it been served up with so many noodles. "We've ditched the singers tonight" mutters the double-bass playing crop-top (the Snapper number four this evening) and from a slick intro of 'Keeping Pigs' and 'Hot Flush' we get some seriously pulverising electro jazz fusion,
which, fine as it is, probably sounds, well, better on the radio.

Only a swirling mantr-astic assault on '4 Dead Monks' raises the temperature, followed as it is by 'Belladonna', highlight of the latest 'Our Aim Is To Satisfy' opus. Not that anyone here's complaining. The place hots up - the double-bass pulses warmly and even the odd electro-squiggle bursts into the sonic bouillabaisse now and again. Everything is left nicely cooking in fact.

It's only the glazed looks on the radio technician's faces which tell you the uncommitted here and at home have all been turned on earlier, whereas now
they've simply tuned out.

Paul Moody