When Essex pianist Robert Mitchell's debut CD Voyager came out last May, its freshness was remarkable considering it was neither flawless nor consistently focused.

But its magic was the drive of Mitchell's own piano-playing, like a fusion of a young McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock recast with elements of late 20th century funk and improv. It is sometimes more suggestive of contemporary classical music than fusion or jazz. Mitchell has in the past come up with more familiar-sounding crossover bands, including J-Life and Quite Sane. But now he is running his own show it has become clear that his horizons are wider than those enterprises suggested.

Mitchell's band Panacea is on tour without the CD's formidable vocalist Eska Mtungwazi. But it has with a powerful substitute in Deborah Jordan, plus charismatic guest appearances from Cuban violinist Omar Puente and electric cellist Ben Davis.

Mitchell dominated the performance. The contrast between the pin-sharp precision of his phrasing and the down-played role of the rhythm section and bass established an interesting tension between the rock-like and the molten. Saxophonist Barak Schmool always sounds reluctant to attack Mitchell's restlessly shifting structures, but Deborah Jordan soared around them with a mix of soul music's sonorities and pure, translucent delicacy high up. Mitchell exploited her impact by dropping the backing for such passages to a minimalist tick.

There was some riveting solo-playing from the rumbling thunder of Davis's cello, and Puente's playing was full of muscle and sinew that dropped away to wisps of musical smoke. The younger British jazz scene has hitherto lacked a formidable improviser/ composer boldly searching for new sharp-end jazz forms that deploy both straight music and new funk. In Robert Mitchell the search may just be over.