Jean Toussaint: Live in Paris and London | CD review

UK-based former Art Blakey Jazz Messenger Jean Toussaint might be as much a teacher as a player these days, but there's not much sign of studious classroom deliberation about these live shows, mostly featuring the robustly inventive tenor and soprano saxist with his vivaciously hip London trio. To go the extra mile, this might turn out to be one of the year's best documents of a contemporary small band skilfully chancing its arm. Toussaint has long been a Wayne Shorter admirer, but it's the appropriateness of that laconically ingenious solo approach to a raft of fresh material that makes the set so distinctive. Opener The Bean Counter starts with a Steve Lacy-like soprano sax melodic frugality, but then shifts effortlessly through tempos all the way to four-four swing and back; but the group improvisation Random Discurse takes the rhythm-mashing even further, with the excellent Troy Miller's tight hip-hop drumming and Andrew McCormack's Terry Rileyish piano-trilling creating a startlingly different environment for Toussaint's Shorterisms. That feel is even more infectious on the effortlessly grooving Heian Yondan, while the Caravan-like Mirage and a very Monkish Round Midnight, with Benet McLean on piano, maintain the straighter-jazz element. It's a very complicated cross-idiom adventure pulled off while barely breaking sweat.