There's laid-back, and then there's Olu Dara. Rarely can a man have looked so ineffably casual at the microphone, as if he were nudging his four-piece band through a spot of leisurely rehearsal and trying out a few new tweaks and spins at the same time. With his blank-verse narratives and loose, rambling grooves, Dara is like a time-travelling mixture of beat poet, veteran bebopper (he played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers) and wandering shaman.

He promised we'd be visiting a lot of different neighbourhoods, and he was as good as his word. Proceedings sprang to life with a jabber of Afro-flavoured guitar, then the rest of the band fell into place with bass, drums and percussion. Olu, perched on a stool at the front of the stage, ventured a few quizzical toots on the trumpet, as if sniffing the night air for clues.

As the set developed, the playing stretched out and grew in several directions at once. Dark, prowling blues alternated with punchy 1970s-style jazz-funk, while Dara fanned his trumpet with something very like a top hat. He began to use his dark, dry voice to stitch together mysterious tales of big-city low life and weird back-country myth. He didn't deign to enlighten us about the titles of his songs, if indeed they are songs or, for that matter, if they even have titles. But his technique is to seize on a word or phrase and kick it around like an old football. There was one that seemed to be all about "okra", and another all about being raised on herbs in Mississippi. ("Not the ganja," he stressed.)

Somewhere in Olu's mind there is a map, and if we behave, he'll show us a glimpse of it. It might not mean a lot though, since, as he points out, "strange things happen every day". His images of "slow walking tiger, fast running snail" harked back to an unseen Africa buried deep in the chromosomes. Strange stuff.