Five key figures from the Jazz Warriors, the musically and socially inspirational black British big band of the 80s, perform separately at Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club during September – the most famous being Courtney Pine, with fellow saxophonists Denys Baptiste and Steve Williamson, trombonist Dennis Rollins and bassist Gary Crosby completing the roster. Steve Williamson led the charge here with his own quintet, in a gig that was both a reminder of how charismatic a prospect he was on his 1990 debut, A Waltz for Grace, and how perplexing this gifted artist with the stirring tone and Hamlet-like uncertainties has been since. Here, Williamson was leading his first new band in over a decade, an all-star outfit with Polar Bear's Seb Rochford on the drums, along with pianist Robert Mitchell, bassist Mike Mondesir and vocalist Filomena Campus.

Williamson's unique sound is founded on a mix of Caribbean music and the terse, mathematical urban funk of the New York M-Base movement, and the latter drove the rhythmically intricate Soon Come, with its staccato single-note repeats, cliffhanging pauses and mind-boggling pattern-juggling from Rochford. Williamson's vibrant, voicelike tenor-sax sound throbbed on low notes and soared high over Robert Mitchell's washes of notes during more lyrical episodes, before the ex-Jazz Warrior ushered Filomena Campus through A Waltz for Grace – unsteadily at first but with growing conviction – on poignantly Wayne Shorter-like soprano sax. Campus was feeling her way in Williamson's freefall soundscape to begin with, but gathered momentum over bold blends of jazz swing and Latin grooves late in the set. Williamson's admirers have been here before, but this is the best band he's performed with in 20 years – and one with immense potential for bridging this fine artist's rich interior life to the expectant world outside.

• The other former Jazz Warriors play the Pizza Express Jazz Club throughout the month.