David Jean-Baptiste, the British clarinettist and saxophonist currently living in New York, eclipses his own soloistic virtues by his encouragement of the gifts of his partners in a formidable mixed-nation ensemble. Its clout is a tribute to Jean-Baptiste's growing pulling-power since his musical adoption by the great US saxophonist and bandleader David Murray. The Special Quintet features the American James Carter on baritone sax, UK drum star Mark Mondesir, Ricardo de Santos on bass and an immensely promising local newcomer, pianist Zoe Rahman.
Since the quintet was assembled specifically for this short tour, and Mondesir was a late replacement, unfamiliarity and culture-gaps could have turned it into the kind of bemused supergroup that exercises its skills in parallel universes and never really listens to itself. But Jean-Baptiste's presence, his enthusiasm, and the deceptively transparent invitation to conversation in his writing and arranging makes the difference. With luck, somebody will have caught its exhilarating live work for a disc.
The tightness of the band generally sidelined preoccupations about solo stars, but James Carter's roaring baritone solos, a mixture of swing geniality and paint-stripping Coltranesque ferocity, were sensational throughout the show. Carter's building of solo odysseys from close-to-the-beat stalking, through whirling fast runs and out into blasting abstractions, and his urgent relationship with Mark Mondesir, put a crucial charge under the band. Jean-Baptiste, a sometime sax player, now restricts himself entirely to clarinet and bass clarinet, with a pure and penetrating sound on the former and a rich, reverberating eloquence on the latter that meshed expressively with Carter's guttural harangues. Jean-Baptiste uses the tone palette of his unusual group well, his arrangements imparting fresh resonances to fairly conventional funky and Latin themes, and borrowing elements from reggae, classical music and Eastern European folk without making them sound like jazz composer's tourism.
Zoe Rahman's subtle turns of the expected melody line and playful trills, where a stretch of Latin-piano chord-slugging might have done, also galvanise the band. Her poise, imagination and technique are clearly qualities on the rise. There's even some straight jazz grooving, notably on the occasional fast blues, and Carter's deep appreciation of the swing-sax tradition is set alight by it. Transatlantic jazz experiments are sometimes more convincing on paper than onstage, but the Special Quintet is one that gives it a good name.
• At the Bonington Theatre, Nottingham (0115-967 0114), tonight.
