2010 has been a busy year for vibes player Jim Hart between guesting with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra during their recent trip to London, where he garnered praise from the almighty Wynton Marsalis, and working as one of the busiest sidemen around he has also managed to secure the company of another US jazz trumpet icon, Ralph Alessi for a string of UK dates including this one at London’s Pizza Express, Dean Street.

The complexity of Alessi’s music, tackled admirably by Hart’s trio of drummer Dave Smith and the Pizza Express’ resident bassist Michael Janisch, was presented here in a very different light to the groups with which Alessi spent a long musical apprenticeship, Steve Coleman’s Five Elements among various other Coleman projects. By shedding the funkier stylistic aspects of the latter Alessi has cultivated an altogether gentler and more contemplative sound, with both this UK quartet and his US group This Against That playing with all the nuance and subtlety of a chamber group.

Compositions like the opener Dog Waking and the snaking Tristano-like Passwords saw Dave Smith grooving with a focused intensity at a volume we night normally associate with ballad playing and Alessi demonstrating an  incredible technique on the horn. His beautiful tone shone through on the Jim Hart ballad For J.D. (dedicated to the late Sir John Dankworth) and left the audience with no doubt to his inventive virtuosity with a searing solo on Morbid Curiosity.

The rhythmically tricky Door In The Wall was negotiated with authority by this the cream of London’s first call rhythm section players, followed by solos from both Hart and Alessi which served to demonstrate why both are regarded as some of the most exciting improvisers around.

- Peter Horsfall