"Sun" enchanted evening with Jerry Dammers at Poole's Lighthouse (From Dorset Echo)

"Sun" enchanted evening with Jerry Dammers at Poole's Lighthouse

12:12pm Tuesday 9th March 2010 in

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Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra, Lighthouse, Poole

"CAN anyone gargle?"

Jerry Dammers, the maverick genius behind The Specials, founder of 2 Tone records, and composer of anti-apartheid anthem, Free Nelson Mandela issues a bizarre challenge to his audi¬ence at Poole's Lighthouse.

He's reworking his classic, Ghost Town, with a 17-piece jazz orchestra, and invites us to enlist a drink to our cause and join him in a throaty version of the hit single's coda.

That the result forms part of a musical triumph and not a poor joke at the expense of one of the best songs ever to top the charts is testament to the surefooted path trodden by Dammers and his Spatial AKA Orchestra in this tribute to the cosmic jazz of Sun Ra.

Dressed in the costumes of ancient Egypt, and sharing a stage with terrifying witch doctor-come-space alien mannequins, Dammers and his musicians win the audience to the sheer fun of it all with heavy grooves, lively brass, and knowing smiles.

Jamaican trombone legend, Rico Rodriguez, joins the orchestra, which includes kettle drums, flute, congas, and synthesisers, for Ghost Town, returning later in the set to contribute more remarkable solos.

Singer and poet, Anthony Joseph, raps the new lyrics Dammers has written to update his chart-topping tirade against the bleakness of Thatcher's Britain, taking aim instead against the world's apathy in the face of environmental armageddon.

"This world/Is 'coming like a dead planet/Is 'coming like a rubbish dump/Needs a stomach pump."

Eric Satie, Martin Denny, and Tommy McCook feature among the artists whose compositions Dammers and his absurdly gifted musicians graft to those of Sun Ra. The result is surprisingly accessible. Only Alice Coltrane's Journey In Satchidandada feels difficult. The rest is immediate and downright enjoyable.

The concert ends with Sun Ra's Space Is The Place, and the musicians dancing in single file through the audience, continuing to play, and taking the gig into the foyer.

Dammers follows, wearing a two-piece, short-sleeved polyester suit of the style favoured by African dictators in the 1970s, and a bemused smile. His return to Poole has been an unqualified success.