‘This CD is an example of Irakere in the second part of the 1990s, when the band was focused a little more on dancing rhythms,’ says bandleader Chucho Valdés in the liner notes. For which, read: this live album has a strong party vibe. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but anyone hoping for a revelatory archival statement from the Afro-Cuban masters may be a little disappointed – by this time, Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D’Rivera had long since departed the band. As the title suggests, it was recorded at Ronnie Scott’s in Birmingham when the enduring Frith Street jazz brand briefly had a home on Broad Street (seven years later sax gave way to sex and the space was transformed into a lap-dancing club). The bit in the title about its being a ‘BBC Recording’ is slightly misleading, since Radio 3 produced and broadcast the gig but, as David Murphy of First Hand Records relates, actually didn’t record the performance – the audio for this release had to be sourced from the British Library. The sound on this remaster is generally very good, and in places the performances are brilliant – check out Chucho’s solo on ‘Mister Bruce’. It’s big on vocals and familiar, good-time tunes, and the rhythms remain irresistible – it’s hard to resist the timba-tastic closing pairing of ‘Tema del Gordo’ and ‘Lo Que Va a Pasar’.