Kenny Wheeler, Big Band, The Vortex, London

One of the great joys of the British jazz scene is the willingness of top-class musicians to perform, on occasion, for love rather than money. No other motive is possible when a line-up as distinguished as that assembled by Kenny Wheeler spills over the stage of the Vortex, taking up almost half of the upstairs room on Stoke Newington Church Street, for with the reduced capacity the receipts on the door could barely have been enough to buy the band a couple of rounds.

The line-up was not only distinguished but unusual, the saxophone and trombone sections being balanced by the sole trumpet of the leader, a french horn, and the voice of Norma Winstone, while the piano-bass-drums rhythm section was enhanced by guitar and accordion. I'm normally of the opinion that the squeezebox is about as welcome in jazz as an electric bass in the Berlin Philharmonic, but if an arranger of Wheeler's subtlety requires an accordion the wise should be slow to prejudge the result. And in this case not only did it contribute to a rhythm section of remarkable variation, instruments dropping in and out, its full chords also filled the gap left by the non- existent trumpet section.

Wheeler's compositions are always intelligent, rich and haunting. Relatively conventional harmonically, it is the way that they move, alternating major and minor keys in phrases of unexpected length, that keeps them from being too comfortable. The phrases don't necessarily go where the listener anticipates, often turning a corner to a chillier, more disquieting place. One such Wheeler composition, and the highlight of this gig for me, was "Little Suite". The theme, at first hopeful, battles alone on flute against the massed ranks of the rest of the horns marching shoulder to shoulder in six time; there's something ever so slightly unsettling in the chords they punch out. Still the flute strikes on over increasingly ambivalent harmonies, till at the end of the structure the minor key resolution suggests its path has reached a melancholy, even despairing, end.

With so many stellar performers (Tony Coe, Stan Sulzmann, Barnaby Dickinson, John Parricelli and Ian Thomas to mention a few) the solos were as fine as one would expect, but one brief break stood out. Halfway through "Little Suite", a sustained chord gave way to a free section in which Evan Parker's tenor saxophone ripped down the curtains and trod them viciously underfoot. It was just a few bars, but his startling ferocity provided the perfect contrast to Wheeler's plaintive, romantic tone. And talking of which, there was really only one criticism to be made of this excellent evening - that the leader didn't take more solos himself.