There's a guilty pleasure about being in a six-blokes-and-a-dog jazz audience when someone special is at work - you know you'll be able to tell everyone when the star is born that you were there back in the day. But a largely empty Vortex for the accomplished quintet led by the gifted Birmingham Conservatoire and Royal Academy pianist Alcyona was a surprise; this young Devon-born artist's music made waves at the Cheltenham jazz festival only two years back, and her debut album Around the Sun has raised eyebrows too.

Alcyona's pieces can be treacherous time-benders, but she could hardly have hired a better drummer for such a challenge. The unfazeable Paul Clarvis was on top of all the rhythm changes, but able to erupt into clattering fills that free up this sometimes meticulous music. Saxophonist Mark Hanslip plays with a murmuring, long-lined inventiveness that recalls both the Lennie Tristano-inspired school that included legends such as Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, and some of the dark tonalities of Wayne Shorter. Trumpeter Robbie Robson is more of an orthodox bebopper, but with a patience in shaping phrases somewhat like a young Henry Lowther.

The intricacies of the music often suggested fascinating new avenues for orthodox jazz practices. Steadily rising, deceptively simple-sounding ascending themes would abruptly become animated collective conversations after a Clarvis drum explosion, and piano interludes sometimes resembled Abdullah Ibrahim chordal themes with sly harmonic twists. The saxophonist and a prodding, nudging Alcyona were perfectly tuned to a Thelonious Monkish dialogue in the second half, when Latin music also obliquely found its way into the rhythm-juggler Changing Times. It would be fascinating to hear this unusual composer's handling of the resources of a bigger band - on present evidence, that seems a very likely prospect.