Tom Arthurs Trio/The Rabbit Project @ 7 Arts, Chapel Allerton, Leeds

The excitement of being at the first gig of Leeds Jazz’s 25th Anniversary is somewhat punctured by MC Dave Hatfield announcing, before a note has been played, that this will be the last ever season of concerts arranged by this dedicated, and entirely unpaid, bunch of jazz fans. To say I’m gutted would be an understatement.

And it’s particularly frustrating that the announcement comes at a gig that’s almost a showcase for the regional pockets of scintillating new jazz that have galvanised UK jazz in the last few years. The Rabbit Project is led by bassist Dave Kane, one of the key figures in Leeds’ own pocket of excellence in jazz and improvisation, LIMA. As the bands recent debut release, ‘The Eye of the Duck’, attests, Kane has a real talent for composing and arranging spacious, brooding and judiciously explosive modern jazz. But live the Quintet open the compositions out and push them to new heights, the title track itself becoming a heaving epic of pulsating improvisation.

By contrast, key member of the London based F-Ire Collective Tom Arthurs leads a trio that deals in a quieter if no less intense form of fluid and utterly absorbing music driven by the motor of improvisation. The music on the trio’s 2008 debut ‘Explications’ provides the bare bones for the set but is used as a jumping off point for richer sonic explorations. Arthurs alternates between trumpet and flugelhorn, with the naturally muted tone of the latter seeming to set the framework of the overall sound. Jasper Hoiby on bass and Stu Ritchie on drums and associated percussion are superbly sympathetic players but are happy to push at the boundaries of Arthurs’ arrangements. Ritchie in particular often spikes the even flow of the music with clatters and the odd furious fusillade, and at one point he and Hoiby even conspire to drop a seriously funked up groove behind Arthurs.

Modern jazz in this country is healthier now than it has been for years. Unfortunately, with the passing of Leeds Jazz we’ll probably need to travel further afield than Chapel Allerton to hear it.

Steve Walsh