Jazz? Schmazz. Why worry about labels? This was a couple of hours of pure musical fun, drawing on the rich musical traditions of (as Curtis explained) Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the East Midlands.

Curtis, on tenor sax, clarinet and flute, played with the house trio of Pete Oxley on guitar, Mark Doffman on drums and Raf Mizraki on electric bass. As well as the more exotic material, they did play some jazz standards, such as Better git it in your soul and Work Song. Here, Curtis played with enormous energy and intensity, and worked hard to transform soloist plus backing trio into a real band. He left plenty of room for their solos and encouraged lots of eight-bar exchanges. The resident musicians responded with some fine solos, and played with a smile on their faces all evening. I particularly enjoyed a very funky take on Bye bye blackbird.

But the real flavour of the evening came from Curtis' excursions into Jewish folk music. He's clearly done a lot of research, but wears his erudition very lightly. In fact he's the exact opposite of a purist, and really delights not just in improvising on traditional Jewish melodies but throwing them together with Latin American dance rhythms. Musically, this works surprisingly well, and gives Curtis the excuse to invent titles like Cuban cucumber and Smoked salmon salsa. And why not? Jazz began as entertainment, born of cultural promiscuity. This particular progeny is called klezmer groove, and Curtis has recently made his second CD with his own band.

As live performance, in front of a packed house (the Spin is routinely packed these days), the mixture of jazz standards and klezmer worked a treat. Oxley and company are well established favourites, and Curtis the musical extravert coaxed the best out of them and charmed most of the audience.

Roger van Schaick