As the London jazz festival’s hundreds of gigs ram home every year, the capital remains the UK’s biggest jazz town. That said, Manchester, with its upsurge of young players reinventing everything from Aphex Twin to bebop and big bands, is hot on its heels. Mancunian dance-jazzers GoGo Penguin are signed to the famous US label Blue Note; the adventurous Manchester jazz festival returns next month; and this three-band showcase gig confirmed the widening stylistic reach of the city’s jazz and experimental label Efpi.

It was a collaborative night, with the thrilling big band Beats & Pieces, led by Efpi boss Ben Cottrell, headlining. Drawing on last year’s album, All In, they opened with lead track Rocky’s floorshaking fanfare of free-sax wails and huffing trombones, twisted Pop’s horn hooks into sly asides off Cottrell’s rhythm guitar shuffle, and massaged a spine-tingling ambient hum for a Norway-inspired feature out of bottleneck guitar sounds and soft, long tones. Cottrell’s quietly purring and then whoopingly soulful remake of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance was a highlight, but the whole set was typical of his erudition and vision, and the band’s unfailing verve.

Members of the group also featured earlier, in an imaginative set of 21st-century bebop mixed with electronic echoes, powerful bass playing and subtle percussion from drummer Johnny Hunter’s quartet. The punky beats-and-improv quartet Let Spin, who played the opening set, were headbangingly hypnotic on their fast collective sprints, although they might have reined in their freeimprov rambles a little.

• Beats & Pieces play Watermill jazz club, Dorking, 28 June. Box office: 07415 815 784.