Another sweet, sweet night at the bar with the R & B band. I took N back there and the line-up was almost entirely different - the drummer replaced by the drummer's 17 yr old son, and the keyboards and vocals taken over by a couple of people who did guest spots last week, and a whole new roster of impromptu guests, held together by the spine of the band, a bassist and singer who, we learned tonight, used to play with the Jackson 5. Tonight a female singer fronted the band - someone who had sung once last week and blown me away. She's a wonderful improvisor - both sharp and comfortable, running around like there are ladders from any place she finds herself to any place she wants to be.

After a series of brilliant spots by people who are obviously comfortable fronting their own bands, a guy who is usually a sax player came on to sing 'ain't no sunshine'. It rocked for a while and then started to languish as he lost lyrical and melodic possibilities, got into this rut that just seemed to deepen and deepen while the band flagged and frayed. And then the woman who was fronting most of the night picked up a second mike and came in, echoing and harmonising and echoing in close tight layers until the bass and keyboard and drums fell into layers of the same thing, and together they built and built and built this exhilarating chamber of sound, the first singer was free, bouncing around the cage, liberated by what he was already doing, how it had been heard.