Lift and separate

Jazz: Colin Towns Mask Quintet/Mask Orchestra/Mask Symphonic

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

The soundtrack orchestra is a creature of the 20th century - a flexible, cost-effective way to synchronise music to on-screen drama and emotion, blending exotic sounds and colours with the European symphonic tradition, big-band jazz and rock rhythm sections according to need. Its natural habitat is the recording studio, where technology can lift, separate and mix such unlikely bedfellows as wooden flutes, electric cellos and drum kits.

Towns's concert brought some of the drama and excitement of a film recording session to the concert stage. As shafts of light caught motes of smoke in the air above the ranks of hand-picked London session players, the packed QEH witnessed a performance style rarely found in the average orchestral concert. We were in the hands of a bunch of pros: studio-quality sound mixing, clever, subtle lighting design and dazzling solos.

The leader knows the value of such musicians well, as he works with them all the time in his regular career as film and TV composer. After a short set with saxophonist Julian Arguelles, singer Maria Pia De Vito and rhythm section, the first half of the long show (more than three hours in total) featured the 18-piece Mask Orchestra, the big band with which Towns recorded his latest double CD Nowhere and Heaven (Provocateur). By using musicians known for their work in Loose Tubes, NJO and the individualistic ensembles of Mike Westbrook and Mike Gibbs, Towns is attempting a synthesis of post- war orchestral jazz. In the second set, the sound of Norma Winstone's voice sailing over the wailing ensemble of "Footprints" evoked Westbrook's "Love Songs". Saxophonist Pete King, adding fire and gravity to the (too- brief) improvised solos, played Harvey Keitel to Towns's Tarantino. It made me wish there were an ensemble this good, playing regularly, that kept jazz classics in the concert repertoire.

The second half opened with two tone poems based on paintings by Edward Burra. In "John Deth", the 70-strong Mask Symphonic established a distinctive Towns timbre reminiscent of several classic film noir scores. "The Tea Shop" worked at a similar level, starting with reflective stride piano by Dave Hartley. Singers Winstone and Pia De Vito dominated "Doves of Peace", but "Still Life" stood out for its memorable themes and (relative) simplicity. Soloists Mark Nightingale (trombone) and Gerard Presencer (flugelhorn and trumpet) were impressive throughout, and Alan Skidmore (tenor sax) added a welcome touch of anarchic passion to the "Coltrane" section of "Footprints". Text settings showed the leader's ability to add something new to the tradition of jazz composition.

Towns is ambitious and energetic, and with his scores for television dramas such as Our Friends in the North he has shown that his best music can turn good drama into great television.

The repertoire and range of the Mask line-ups are further evidence of his credentials. As a musician I'm wildly impressed, but as a concert- goer I wished the programme had been shorter, better paced and more focused; something closer to the "jazz theatre" promised. In the heavyweight jazz context Towns has chosen to work, his musical signature is still blurred.