Eliane Elias plays the piano like a slightly manic driver, her bare feet heavily stamping out the beat as she veers into altered and extended territory with the ease of a veteran rallyist. And there were no pit-stops on this outing. The audience were already raring to go, having been warmed up by violinist Omar Puente and his Eclipse band's flares and swoops, snatches of Czardes, wistful violin-guitar duets and witty piano-tag. Elias certainly knows how to pick a good band. Brazilian-born and classically trained, she started out with Eddie Gomez, played with Steps Ahead in the early 80s and worked with Herbie Hancock and Antonio Carlos Jobim, recording two Jobim collections. Marc Johnson on bass and Satoshi Takeishi on drums were clearly in the premier league, but at times they seemed incidental to Elias's compelling journey. Her first two numbers were from her latest album - the Cole Porter title track, Everything I Love, and Charlie Mingus's wonderful Nostalgia in Times Square, which she rendered with slinky chromatic precision. She introduced pieces with a pensive conversation between hands, a dainty, enquiring and impatient dialogue surrendering finally to theme or rhythm. In a Jobim medley, her stride bassline led the way for a splash of brass. Then, in the emotive The Way You Love Me, she got quite jittery with excitement. It was like watching a drunken tramp as we held our breath, waiting to see which way she would reel. A drum solo recovered the balance, to which Elias added - gracefully, mind - the occasional wilful plonk. A Gershwin concoction saw her slamming out slicks of melody, using both ends of the piano to fantastic effect. Later she used her fingers less as hammers than levers, pulling out sounds like a harpist. The Time is Now and Jobim's Desafinado gave Johnson a chance to shine: a low bass refrain in the first gave a sinister underhang to his skittering fingers, and then a high range in the second conjured great musty, moonlit patches of sound. Elias sang only once - a husky ballad, picked out sparingly - but it was a restful interlude in an evening defined by coiled energy.
