It was an anxious moment when Chick Corea and his drummer Jeff Ballard briefly leapt to their feet to swap phrases in the celebrated pianist's opening show on Thursday and some of the audience rapturously applauded. But this was mercifully the only episode in a fine performance balancing individual spontaneity, collective understanding and original reworkings of standard jazz material in which Corea's showy stadium-jazz past resurfaced.
Corea was performing with a revised version of his Origin sextet - the revision being the British saxophonist Tim Garland, who turned out to be one of the star performers of the night. Garland, a fluent postbop improviser, appeared to relish Corea's constant cajoling from the keyboard, which might come as a surprise to those who know him from the spacey folk-jazz ensemble Lammas.
Being hired by Corea has imparted a new urgency to Garland's melodic imagination, and revealed what a dynamic player he can be. Origin's modus operandi is often to build intriguing multi-layered arrangements in the theme statements, but then to give the soloists their head, often only accompanied by a single other instrument - often the leader's piano.
The opening moments bordered on the abstract (fast, impacted piano runs resolving in oddly suspended turns, flurries of drumming) before easing out into a rather anonymous-sounding percussive up-tempo stutter that eventually relaxed into a mid-tempo groove reminiscent of McCoy Tyner's emphatic themes.
Altoist Steve Wilson then established what an effective contrast his meticulous melodic development was going to be to Garland's more freewheeling one, and trombonist Steve Davis, drummer Ballard and the majestic bassist Avishai Cohen displayed the ensemble density and responsiveness they have built up both in Origin and in Cohen's own ensemble.
Corea rarely leaves Latin music alone for long, and Little Flamenco began with a glowering Cohen bass intro before picking up momentum with castanet-like hand-clapping from the horn players.
Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered was a real surprise, from its cool opening of flute whispers against long trombone notes, through Corea piano variations balancing his usual melodic inventiveness at speed with tantalising on/off appearances of the original theme and constantly changing disguises.
A hurtling up-tempo Thelonious Monk excursion revealed intense Ornette Coleman sympathies in altoist Wilson and lots of heads-down blowing, a band playing to all its strengths.
