The chamber music-oriented Purcell Room may seem ill-suited to a leaping-in-the-aisles occasion, but Tony Kofi, the personable young Ghanaian saxophonist, effortlessly bypassed its sobriety with his Afro-Jazz Family.

If the former Jazz Warrior had simply sparked a party atmosphere with the familiar stimulus of a Latin-jazz percussion extravaganza and a lot of amiable associates gyrating around the stage, it would have been forgotten next morning. But Kofi has an immensely sophisticated, melodically creative jazz composer's sensibility, and over the past decade has matured into an improvising saxophonist of considerable character.

Kofi's talent as a composer is to combine the taut, on-the-money accuracy and bursting confidence of an American band (he studied in America in the early 1990s with, among others, Art Blakey's saxophonist Billy Pierce and funk-trumpet guru Donald Byrd) with an idiomatic breadth drawn from his African and European experiences.

But he began alone on stage with his alto sax, mingling a tremulous clarinet-like tone on long notes with earthy slurs and boppish flurries. A soulful melody gradually shadowed and shaped the improvisation.

The nine-piece Afro-Jazz Family, including South African trumpeter Claude Deppa as a guest, then surrounded Kofi, and its big, singing sound set loose the townships feel of The Muse and the jubilant Latin atmosphere of Dual African Passion.

Deppa played most of his ensemble parts at dog-whistle altitude, which heightened the hell-for-leather intensity the band was already playing at. The sustained quality of the writing banished almost all longueurs or sagging passages across two sets. A band to watch out for on the local circuit, and one that is more than ready to record and tour.