Bringing together separate traditions, particularly the jazz and classical ones, can result in a mixture rather like oil and water. Not here, though. Perhaps it's because the ensemble's guest, pianist Gwilym Simcock, works in and understands both these genres so fully, but with the help of a band that's really on top of its game, his Point of Contact for Piano, Vibraphone and Strings achieved a beguiling ease of movement and a real unity of purpose.
Simcock is a marvellous player. In his expansive solo work, his meticulously plotted duetting with Ben Bryant on vibraphone and his writing for strings he showed great imagination, wit and conceptual awareness. It was all fine stuff but the way he brought the piece to its conclusion, with a surge of energy, was sheer class.
There was much class, too, in Russian jazz pianist Leonid Chizhik's Variations on a theme of Mozart, with Bryant adding weightless drumming and the ensemble's artistic director, Jonathan Morton, a swing violin solo as Simcock interpreted the variations with brilliant clarity.
The programme's composer, Georges Enescu, was new to me but his Octet would certainly inspire further investigation with its finely drawn harmonies and constant sense of movement and undercurrents, even at it calmest.
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