Joey Calderazzo *** Pizza Express Jazz Club, London

Joey Calderazzo, a favourite accompanist for Michael Brecker through the 90s, is one of the best post-bop pianists of recent years. As often happens when improvisors with regular partners have to play with impromptu bands instead, the atmosphere at this show has a compelling grit and edge. Not that he's starting completely from cold - his drummer is his UK-resident brother Gene, a performer with similar directness and bite, and his bassist Orlando LeFleming is no stranger to pianists who don't let the grass grow under their pedals.

Calderazzo's originals have a movie-score evocativeness that stays the New York side of sentimental. The Oracle began as a tone-poem, but quickly accelerated to a McCoy Tyner-rumble, pushed by Gene Calderazzo's clattering backbeats. Bill Evans's Time Remembered showcased the pianist's sensitivity to contrast, as a flowing spontaneous melody was capped by a stabbed chord. Calderazzo likes conversation too, often picking up LeFleming's bass figures and bouncing them back at him. The original piece, Midnight Voyage, was an instantly accessible melody over rolling mallet-work, that turned into the kind of bright swing that could have easily sat Calderazzo on Wynton Kelly's stool in a late-50s Miles ensemble.

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible