The virtuoso bassist and composer Barry Guy's New Orchestra have played three diversely programmed nights at London's Cafe OTO. Few contemporary musicians balance innovative yet entertaining jazz/classical crossovers as successfully as Guy, and the final night at OTO was typical of him – some small-group improv framed by themes, dialogue for delicate baroque violin and ruggedly free-jazzy orchestra, and two improv-packed rondos.
In an opening duet, Guy's flawless fingerboard-length dashes and upper-register clarity complemented trombonist Johannes Bauer's windy sounds, multiphonic chords, and upwardly curling long tones – executed as if he were hauling rope. Guy's wife and colleague, the baroque violinist Maya Homburger, then joined the orchestra for the UK premiere of Amphi, which opened with a soft-cop/hard-cop game of shimmering violin sounds and percussion thumps, ending on a roaring, dissonant full-stop from the band. Agustí Fernández's supple piano improv against the brass, and Homburger's airborne swoops around Hans Koch's bobbing bass clarinet figures, Guy's elegant bowed bass and Evan Parker's weaving soprano-sax lines took the piece on through constantly fascinating shifts of scenery.
A quartet comprising Guy, Parker (now on tenor sax, and typically playing it like a rugby forward bursting towards the touchline), Fernández, and drummer Paul Lytton then played the fast-moving, high-energy Topos. In the second half, Guy and Homburger shared the exquisitely lyrical Rondo for Nine Birds, and Radio Rondo was a piano concerto for the remarkable Fernández. His logical, streamingly Cecil Taylor-like lines emerged from an abruptly explosive fanfare to negotiate tautly crackling atonal hooks, reflective phases, a fast debate with Jürg Wickihalder's alto sax, and closing harmonies that almost evoked the pensive, deep-blue harmonies of Gil Evans. As a balance of accessibility, experimentation, classical punctiliousness and jaw-dropping virtuosity, it was a memorable show.
• The Barry Guy New Orchestra concert will be broadcast this summer on BBC Radio 3's Jazz on 3.
