You can't fault Chris Bowden's mate for devotion: he followed the saxophonist down from Birmingham to sing the lilting (female) vocal part to Crockers and Killers. To anyone who knew the tune, it was pretty funny; to others it was a karaoke turn from a bloke who had wandered in off the street.
But it made a nice change from modern-jazz preciousness. Bowden, dressed in his Sunday worst, ambled round the stage, making a concerted effort to smoke as he did so. "We love you, Chris!" shouted one groupie. "So do I," he replied in a kind of stoned way. Bowden is at the jazz end of Ninjatune's output, but is being hailed as a player able to attract the label's other customers from hip-hop and club scenes. What is exciting is that he has been able to do that without a feeling of compromise.
The set opened with ZOO ZOO - grimy funk, with drummer Neil Bullock and Bowden seeing who could sit back on the beat the longest without the whole thing dropping off. The interlocking parts tumble, each with its own style - drunken, nimble, or taking giant billowing steps like Ben Markland's bass. By the time Andy Ross dumped his flute for a baritone sax, it sounded like a Morphene number. ZOO ZOO is nearly an 18-minute track on the album. Bullock made one of those "so good it hurts" expression as he kept the groove going yet skillfully added enough distractions.
Only Angst turned a five-note, playground sneer of a tune into a thundering juggernaut. It would have benefited from the many extra players the album employed, despite sterling work from Ross and Simon Richmond, whose analogue synthesisers gave a more relevant, funky electronic feel than the ubiquitous signature of turntables.
To be fair, this didn't quite capture the power of Bowden's excellent new album; it also occasionally missed its loving attention to detail, the gentler moments being bludgeoned to keep the club spirit. But you can see why Bowden has broken the jazz barrier. He is not chained to tired jazz licks and he doesn't smear everything with bluesiness. Like his tunes, his sound is scorching, funky and determined.
