When she was five, her dad introduced the Chicago-raised alto saxophonist Matana Roberts to jazz - by making her listen to a whole side of atonal sax firebrand Albert Ayler's classic 1965 Bells album. It was a baptism that could have gone either way, but Roberts was unfazed; she has become an eloquent, dramatic tone-warping free-jazz artist, right out of Ayler's anti-bebop tradition.

Roberts' often raucous but sometimes affecting lyricism and strong compositions made a mark at last year's London jazz festival, and she is now launching an album, The Chicago Project. Chicago was the first home of the influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians - a collective that has included Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Fred Anderson, Roberts' saxophone mentor. Roberts is the youngest member. A local trio of Robert Mitchell (piano), Tom Mason (bass) and young expat New Yorker Chris Vatalaro (drums) not only supported the newcomer's wayward muse but inspired and provoked it.

Free jazz of a 1960s vintage vibrates through Roberts' hot, vocalised tone, but her contemporaneity is apparent in crunching funk grooves and bursts of loop-repeating phrasing. Mitchell, his ease in Roberts' company growing by the minute, unpacked his full repertoire of Cecil Taylor runs, bluesy trills and clanging, Monk-like chords. Sometimes Roberts would bring free furores back to gospelly Charles Mingus-like anthems, to street-band strutting, or to the rock-music directness of Thrills, a Roberts original. There were smoky ballad episodes and a rhythmically audacious dissection of Thelonious Monk. With this much independence at such a young age, Roberts is set to make a real difference on the jazz scene.

· At the Front Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, tonight. Details: 0871 663 2500.