The translucent sound of saxophonist Charles Lloyd floated among the chimes of a Hungarian cimbalom and the plaintively violin-like sound of a Greek lyra, to close the London jazz festival on a world-jazz fusion that symbolised both the event’s enduring curiosity and his own.

Lloyd delicately unveiled his new Wild Man Suite on tenor sax as if John Coltrane were in transcendental meditation. Then drummer Eric Harland powered up the intensity and Miklós Lukács swept into a cimbalom solo that seemed to splice the rhythms and sonics of bells, drums, pianos and vibraphones. Lukács mostly fuelled the heated episodes, while lyra-player Socratis Sinopoulos filled the quiet ones with slow-bowed murmurs, and Lloyd ended with ethereal flute and a recitation from the Bhagavad Gita. This was more haunting, highly personal, post-Coltrane jazz with European colouration than a jazz angle on Hungarian and Greek music. It was a fascinating contrast to the busier methods of the Soundprints quintet, co-led by trumpeter Dave Douglas and saxophonist Joe Lovano on the opening set.

As on their last trip to the UK, the quintet combined fizzing two-horn counterpoint, provocative drumming from Joey Baron, and brought a profound awareness of jazz history ingeniously into the present.

Elsewhere at the weekend, saxist Phil Meadows’ Engines Orchestra fulfilled the promise of its fine CD’s promise, and pianist Robert Mitchell’s Invocation joined two choirs, classical strings, jazz trio and solo vocalists. Mitchell’s 90-minute work was often majestic, though sometimes it seemed too monumentally inclusive to drive a clear story through. But he was superbly served by his soul-steeped solo singer, Deborah Jordan, as was Engines Orchestra by the growing eloquence of eclectic singer Alice Zawadzki.