They may both be jazz-rooted female singers from Norway, but Silje Nergaard and Sidsel Endresen really come from different planets. Six years ago (with the then-unknown Tord Gustavsen as her pianist), Nergaard produced instrument-like effects all the way from an oboe-like upper range to a metallic, synth-like sound, gracefully floated on accessible grooves. But in her sold-out Sunday show at Cheltenham, soul-funk inflections made her more of a classy pop singer for thirtysomethings. Even her seductive hit Be Still My Heart seemed to have shed some of its early mysteries, though postbop pianist Helge Lien pushed the envelope when he could.

At the other end of the universe, a quarter of the recital-room audience left Sidsel Endresen's gig, and the remainder cheered her guitar improv quartet Speeq. In a fascinating hour, an impassive Endresen travelled from eerie falsetto yodels to fast percussive chatters mimicking tabla-playing, and on to squeezed, blurted sounds like a faulty tape recorder.

Different but equally gripping was the music of American reeds multi-instrumentalist Bennie Maupin, formerly with Miles Davis (on the fusion epic Bitches Brew) and Herbie Hancock's hitmaking Headhunters. Maupin's late resurgence with a subtle two-percussion band pays contemporary tribute to older jazz mentors and personal heroes (bop pianist Walter Bishop, swing arranger Spud Murphy, Lester Young), delivered in voice-like bass-clarinet figures, tenor-sax flurries and low-end flute reveries.

Reeds star Charles Lloyd's group played the day's big Town Hall show. The later stages featured a percussion hurricane from Eric Harland, launched out of an understated flute blues, and a similar eruption from piano virtuoso Jason Moran over a Latin groove. Lloyd had swept from animated Ornette Coleman-like doodlings to a swaggering swing-sax braggadocio on the same piece. It is this often meditative artist's most upfront and jazziest group since his early 1990s comeback.