If you were trying to create the perfect jazz group, you couldn't do better than Christian McBride's Inside Straight. McBride may be a superstar bassist – playing with everyone from Queen Latifah to McCoy Tyner – but he has also forged a substantial career as a bandleader. He's a charismatic frontman, with the timing and eye-contact of a standup comedian.

The quintet start their second set at Ronnie's with Used to Could, a bluesy, soulful tune with which McBride and pianist Peter Martin have a ball playing with the sneaky bass figure. Martin screws his face into a pleasurable grimace whenever he and his boss hit their mark. It is an object lesson in the way jazz musicians communicate with each other on stage.

The lineup is completed by saxophonist Steve Wilson, rising star Warren Wolf (vibraphone) and Ulysses Owens, a young drummer who has absorbed every nuance of McBride's multi-dimensional style in a manner that makes the rhythm section both hard-swinging and highly sensitive.

The set includes note-perfect versions of several numbers from McBride's new album Kind of Brown, including the fast, Eric Dolphy-like Stick and Move, and Uncle James, dedicated to mentor James Williams, a sweet, bass-led waltz that inspires a decorous solo from Wolf and a dazzling one from Martin.

There's also a standard, The Good Life, in a trio version that foregrounds the virtuoso bass-playing we have come expect from McBride. This is a killer band, with a level of expertise and conviction that could turn jazz agnostics into true believers.