Henry Threadgill stood alone at center stage, listening intently to the gathering murmur of sound from the seated musicians around him. His concentration was almost palpable as he remained there, head bowed and with his hand on his chin, swaying gently to the groundswell of overlapped rhythms and choppy phrases. But the turbulence faded as he picked up his flute, and Threadgill reshaped its contour with a thoughtful, economical solo. Delivered with the inscrutable authority of Zen koans, each phrase was left to hang, unresolved, and to sink in gradually. This moment came early in Threadgill’s set with his sextet, Zooid, at the San Francisco Jazz Festival on Sunday night. But it was typical of the 80-minute performance, an intellectual safari through dense jungles of crisscrossed sound and innovative musical textures.

Threadgill’s music can be disorienting, but it is not, as too many people continue to insist, “free jazz.” These tunes were not improvised; they were intense, intricate compositions, with copious written scores spilling off the sextet’s music stands as evidence. Rising from muted solo introductions, they would swell gradually to envelop the full band, only to end with a stunning abruptness that could make a 15-minute performance feel like the briefest vignette.

Zooid’s group cohesion is remarkable, but each member of the ensemble brings something unique. Guitarist Liberty Ellman held a running conversation with the rest of the band, countering each soloist with brisk commentary and probing his own breaks from a variety of oblique angles. Stomu Takeishi, barefoot and writhing over his bass guitar, would rock back in his chair, lifting his legs parallel with the floor, and then roll forward to a crouch, all while filling in the crevices of the music with carefully targeted notes and swift, slashing strums. It was easy to forget that Ellman and Takeishi were playing acoustic instruments, but cellist Christopher Hoffman was nearly inaudible much of the time, his pizzicato accents remaining well below the surface. In solos, however, Hoffman overlaid the rhythm with a slouching, weary moan.

Threadgill seemed always to be pondering, as if thinking three moves ahead. On alto saxophone, he ramped up from furtive steps and tight squeaks to a wide-open wail, while his work on bass flute was exotic and ghostly, his phrases curling ambiguously in a stream of musical question marks. He dovetailed nicely, if oddly, with the tuba and trombone of José Davila, whose amorphous perambulations, suggesting the troubled dreams of some anxious elephant, pulled the music gently off-balance. Behind it all, Elliot Humberto Kavee’s drumming was a constant churn, a dizzying clockwork of gears and flywheels, rising and falling like the tide.

A zooid, I am informed, is a solitary cell that is part of a larger organism but can act independently from it. It is perhaps obvious to note that Threadgill’s group is itself a zooid in the greater body of jazz, but the comparison bears repeating: Threadgill’s music may fit within the long, stretching tentacles of the jazz avant-garde, but even within that context it is utterly unique, pulling in some indefinable direction all its own.

The spirit of John Coltrane still looms large over jazz. Forty-three years after the sax titan’s death, legions of followers continue to grapple with his incendiary music, trying to assimilate his legacy while extending it through their own stylistic contributions.

Drummer Anthony Brown has a somewhat different approach from most. As the leader of San Francisco’s multi-ethnic Asian American Orchestra, he has spent the past dozen years exploring the work of Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and other giants from a Pacific Rim perspective, incorporating Asian instruments and sonorities in striking big-band arrangements. So when Brown turned his attention to Coltrane, it was the overt non-western underpinnings of tunes like “India,” “Africa” and “Dahomey Dance” that most attracted him. Trane often followed an eastern muse, but from a strictly western point of view. Brown, in his new CD India & Africa: A Tribute to John Coltrane, upends that perspective and discovers a whole new world hidden in Coltrane’s compositions.

The Orchestra’s CD-release show at Yoshi’s San Francisco on Wednesday night closely followed the two-suite program of the disc, but with additional vigor and a triumphant spirit that filled the spacious club. The first set began with a processional air, as solo gong gave way to the spectral, enigmatic sounds of sheng mouth organ and shakuhachi flute for a meditative take on “Living Space.” But it was in the next tune, “India,” that the music truly came alive.

Led by the sinuous sarod plucking of Steve Oda and impassioned soprano sax of Masaru Koga, the 12-piece orchestra blossomed in a glorious, throbbing riff that washed over the room in waves. Oda’s playing was a thing of beauty, sliding through the rhythmic twists of Dana Pandey’s tabla drumming in a perfectly balanced expression of India and the blues. Switching the scene briefly to Spain, “Olé” brought an imperial stateliness to a striding caravan rhythm, with flautist Marcia Miget and trumpeter Geechi Taylor countering each other in a shower of musical sparks.

Oda and Pandey converged into concentric orbits in their untitled duet segment. Pandey’s tabla spun tightly concentrated rhythms within Oda’s gentler, cyclic sarod patterns, each player stretching out and snapping back with elastic agility. Back with the full band, Koga led the way to the suite’s conclusion, letting loose with high-speed acrobatics and guttural honks that fed into a delirious, smashing cyclone of percussion.

The group slimmed down to a nonet for an entr’acte not on the CD: a brief but harrowing Brown original called “Sanju: Atomic Rain” evoked the fearsome undulation of air raid sirens and thunderous clamor of falling bombs, a stark contrast with the warm, hopeful sound of Coltrane’s “After the Rain.” The smaller group then launched into “Suite Africa,” an exciting compilation which included the classics “Africa,” “Liberia,” and “Dahomey Dance.”

Kenneth Nash, a force throughout the night on percussion, added singing, African whistle, thumb piano and spoken word to the mix for “Exaltation,” then locked into bassist Mark Izu’s deadly-serious groove for “Africa.” Koga and Melecio Magdaluyo put up a stern two-tenor front here – Koga striking wildly while Magdaluyo offered a more grounded sound – and Brown took command with slamming yet flexible power in “Liberia” and “Dahomey Dance.” This latter tune was, if anything, much too short. Where Coltrane’s recording of “Dahomey” was relaxed and casually hypnotic, Brown’s interpretation is truly danceable, with a fiercely infectious rhythm leading into a raucous finale.

Providing the capper on Wednesday’s show (as on the CD), trombone master Wayne Wallace brought a lighter, celebratory air to his arrangement of “Afro Blue,” swinging it joyously into the night and leaving Brown grinning broadly. He has reason to be proud. The Asian American Orchestra’s arrangements may not follow Coltrane’s original conceptions of his music, but in bringing a previously submerged element to the fore, they enrich our understanding of it.

Two generations of jazz met at Yoshi’s San Francisco last week, as pianist McCoy Tyner teamed up with trumpeter Roy Hargrove for the first time. But something was amiss in what turned out to be an uncomfortable pairing between the two stars.

After seven sets together over a four night span, the quartet — with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Willie Jones III — could reasonably be expected to have honed their communication and been clicking on all cylinders. But Hargrove in particular, usually so confident and exuberant, seemed completely out of place here. Restrained to the point of repression, he played Tyner’s melodies thinly and without conviction, ended his solos abruptly, often just as they were starting to come together, and disappeared from view whenever he wasn’t playing, which was most of the time. Nerves? Perhaps. But Hargrove’s frequent glances toward the piano also suggested a fundamental lack of communication, highlighted midway through the set when Hargrove brought his flugelhorn on stage, only to realize it was the wrong tune. He had to go back for his trumpet.

Indeed, Hargrove sounded truly like himself on only two occasions. His solo on “Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit” seemed to burst forth, with low, trilling lines rolling up to sharp, jabbing thrusts and searing arcs. And for the finale, Duke Ellington’s “In a Mellow Tone,” Hargrove blew with a straight up swing, breezy and punching. There were flashes of Roy’s personality in “Blues on the Corner” as well, but for the most part he came across as an extra wheel.

But this was Tyner’s gig, and the leader himself was in fine form. He established the template early, with brisk tempos and grand, almost extravagant pianism. Building up from thick, lush chords, suffused with gospel fervor and balanced by brief, sweeping runs up the keys, Tyner’s playing battled age with depth and sagacity. And if his communication with Hargrove never quite gelled, Tyner’s interplay with the rhythm section was another matter entirely. Patitucci and Jones created hard, heavy grooves, and rather than use these as jumping off points, Tyner tended to support and enhance them in his solos, applying ever-greater dramatic pressure.

Patitucci was hip and soulful, his soloing fleet-fingered, happy-go-lucky and flawlessly melodic as he bounced from intricate flutterings to prodding riffs, at one point dropping in a quote from Thelonious Monk’s “Green Chimneys.” And Jones was explosive, constantly challenging his bandmates with sustained, driving force.

Perhaps that was enough. There was sustained applause at the end, with the audience clamoring and whistling for an encore. But it never came, and the club finally had to announce that “the show is over.” It was a fitting end to a set that may have provided a few thrills but never came close to matching its potential.

Charles Lloyd; photo courtesy www.charleslloyd.com

As the Charles Lloyd Quartet began the second half of a two-night engagement at Yoshi’s Oakland on Thursday evening, their music seemed to coalesce from nothing, gathering itself and rolling into the room like billowing fog from a gray, choppy sea. The house was packed to capacity, but Lloyd’s august presence seemed to radiate throughout the club, creating a sense of warmth and inner stillness that allowed his band’s surging creativity to burst forth.

This band – with the dazzling Jason Moran on piano, eloquent Reuben Rogers on bass and elemental Eric Harland on drums – is widely regarded as one of the heaviest combos in jazz, and they proved it time and again on this night. Focusing on music from their new ECM release, Mirror, the group found brought renewed vividness to Lloyd’s established repertoire of standards and originals, performing with fathomless depth, naked emotion and a profound sense of spirit.

A flute waited patiently on stage for Lloyd, as did an exotic tárogató horn, but the master stuck to tenor sax for the duration of the set. Lifting his legs in turn as if stepping gingerly through a minefield, Lloyd poured out torrents of notes in his solos, marking a contrast from the relatively straightforward lyricism of his melodies. But even his plainest statements were distinctive: In “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” Lloyd refracted and embellished the tune, no so much following the written melody as moving in parallel to it, his lines simple and searching, with notes drifting down like leaves.

But no matter how weighty as Lloyd and company can be, they also have a lighter side, working in elements of soul, gospel and Latin rhythm. Moran was playful and aggressive at the piano, his solos spinning out rhapsodically in a riot of tonal color. As his fingers scrambled across the keyboard, he bounced and gyrated on his chair, as if ready to topple over at any moment. But at other moments, as in the haunting “La Llorona,” Moran was tender and resonant, setting piercing, solitary notes against a richly dignified, sonata-like background. He showed marvelous interplay with Rogers, darkly buoyant on bass, whose own solos were passionate and electrifying, if not always easy to hear in the mix. And Harland connected directly with the rapt audience, toying with rhythm, lightly sketching around the edges, and then diving in with abandon. When the time came for Harland’s main solo of the evening, Lloyd, Moran and Rogers all quietly left the stage, giving the drummer free reign to build up a volcanic outburst that, remarkably, never lost the groove established by the full quartet.

It was a thrilling set from start to finish, and when the audience broke into a standing ovation at the end, there was no formality to the gesture. Their enthusiasm was as sincere and heartfelt as Lloyd’s remarkable music.

Performing for a sold-out crowd in his home town, Ambrose Akinmusire took confident command of the stage at Yoshi’s in Oakland last night. Currently a New York resident, the 28-year old trumpeter is leading a quintet of solid young musicians — including buzz-builder Gerald Clayton on piano and childhood buddy Justin Brown on drums — on a west coast tour in advance of a studio recording session next week.

Playing just one set, the band ran through seven original compositions that showed both notable maturity and a steadfast refusal to play it safe. The overall mood was penumbral, with dusky grooves and melancholy ballads leading the way. Akinmusire and tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III shadowed each other on the opening “Confessions to My Unborn Daughter,” each working their way up from simple beginnings to frothy abandon, the saxophone pouring forth concentrated fire, the trumpet spiky and braying.

Akinmusire and Smith make an interesting pair. Akinmusire is an unpredictable, highly dynamic trumpeter. He has his own sound, with solos following their own logic, a “murmur-SHOUT-murmur” making quantum leaps between linearities. Long threads of notes unroll in his solos, full of variation and flutter, but often ending in moments of drawn-out stillness. Smith, meanwhile, approaches his breaks calmly and analytically, twisting and searching as if solving a combination lock. And when the last tumbler falls into place, he seems suddenly to expand and ignite, flaring upwards as the rhythm swells behind him.

Gerald Clayton was a constant presence, glittering darkly beneath the horns. His own solos could be angular and blocky or meditatively spacious: one captivating turn found him working with far-flung snippets, subtly deflecting their trajectories but never letting them touch. It was a moment later reflected by bassist Harish Raghavan, who took his time in a lengthy solo space, allowing each of his low, curved notes to hang temptingly in midair. Justin Brown’s drumming was well suited to the group, mixing in staccato auctioneer rhythms or textures suggestive of North Africa, following his colleagues closely and occasionally offering wry commentary on their phrases.

The Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet heads into the recording studio next Monday, with an album due out on Blue Note in Spring 2011.

It’s been five years since British jazz critic Stuart Nicholson churned up the journalistic waters with his provocative book, Is Jazz Dead? (Or Has It Moved to a New Address). Hugely controversial amongst the jazz cognoscenti and widely panned by his peers in the U.S., Nicholson’s book was both a scathing indictment of what he saw as the hidebound state of American music and a celebration of innovative new jazz being made in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia.

Now that the furor has ended, the organizers of this year’s Portland Jazz Festival found both inspiration and a rallying cry in Nicholson’s theme, roundly refuting the book’s first thesis even as they endorsed the second over a week of concerts spread across the city. In the festival’s climactic weekend (Feb. 26-28), three acts from the vanguard of Norway’s rich scene shared top billing with more familiar stars, creating an effective mix of the comfortable and the cutting edge.

Sponsored by Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air and US Bank, and under the artistic directorship of the indefatigable Bill Royston, the festival sprawls in its low-key way, filling Portland’s cafés and supper clubs with the full variety of local talent: from the hokum-filled swing of retro band the Stolen Sweets to freewheeling late-night jam sessions led by pianist/educator Darrell Grant.

The main events alternated primarily between the grand stage of the Newmark Theatre downtown and the more down-to-earth confines of Norse Hall, a Sons of Norway lodge across the Willamette River. Ping-ponging between the venues, adventurous listeners found themselves in a dizzying whirl of sounds thunderous and whisper-soft, hard-swinging and cerebrally sedate.

The Mingus Big Band in 2008, with Sue Mingus. Photo by Jimmy Katz.

Friday night’s program featured the Mingus Big Band at the Newmark, followed almost immediately by the Norwegian trio In the Country at Norse Hall. The two shows could not have been more different: Where the big band focused on individual virtuosity, serpentine ensemble charts and an homage to the past, the trio took an inward journey, their tunes inflating from moody introspection to massive, striding statements.

The Mingus group almost didn’t make it: A snowstorm in New York forced a mad scramble to reach the West Coast by show time. But despite arriving one horn short, trumpeters Brandon Lee and Alex Sipiagin admirably filled the gap with acrobatic, witty solos, while Hans Glawischnig held down the all-important bass chair with nimble muscularity. An eager audience gobbled it up, meeting every flashy turn with boisterous applause, but saving their loudest response for the hyperspeed soloing of 18-year-old drummer Justin Faulkner. Sipiagin, incidentally, would return to the Newmark stage the following night in the Dave Holland Quintet, while Glawischnig and Faulkner backed Pharoah Sanders on Sunday.

In the Country. Photo by Guri©Dahl

In the Country has such a distinctive group sound they brought along (and repeatedly acknowledged) their own board engineer from Norway. And it was soon apparent why: As reflected on their recent ECM release Whiteout, the trio’s music is subtle and dynamic, moving easily from quiet minimalism to booming pulses, unusual textures and orchestrally expansive climaxes.

Morten Qvenild’s piano swept from hushed to heroic, occasionally evoking a dulcimer or celeste, always integrating seamlessly with the elastic, resolute drumming of Pal Hausken and Roger Arntzen’s sensitive bass. All three musicians employed electronic effects alongside their acoustic instruments, integrating elements of pop, folk, fusion and electronica. It was not a sound many American jazz fans are used to, and the audience reaction was equally divided between hearty cheers and quiet befuddlement. But for those with open ears, the music was triumphant.

Much has been made, in Nicholson’s book and elsewhere, about the so-called “Nordic tone” of Scandinavian jazz, which refers and reacts to a folk and classical tradition far removed from the swing/blues/bop mainstream of the United States. But a deeply expressive Saturday afternoon set by the sax/accordion duo of Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli seemed to reshape space entirely.

Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli. Photo by Morten Krogvold

The Norse Hall performance unfolded in slow motion, stretching over nearly two hours without interruption. Beginning with the hushed sound of his accordion “breathing,” Haltli used the textures and dynamics of his instrument’s lowest tones to establish a dreamlike setting full of mist and mystery, then went to the opposite extreme for folksy solo turns. Standing beside Haltli with his hair carelessly obscuring his left eye, Seim played haunting melodies allied as much to central Asia as to his homeland, his notes slurring through near-eastern scales in a wavering, vocal-like moan. By turns spare and twisting, contemplative and witty, Seim provided the main narrative thrust while Haltli created the context, changing the entire cast of the music on a dime. With the tiniest alteration in harmonic shading, Haltli transformed Nordic chill into Iranian dust, or a tender caress into a sharp-edged slice.

Turning to more abstract sounds, Haltli tossed cutting, disjointed phrases into the mix, then shadowed Seim, matching his peregrinations nearly note-for-note with stunning fluidity and surprising humor.

More sympathetic magic came in the Dave Holland Quintet’s set at the Newmark on Saturday night. Holland runs perhaps the best-oiled machine in all of jazz, with a sound that is huge and powerful, solid and seamless, making the complex sound simple and the simple sound fresh.

Tenor saxophonist Chris Potter wailed and honked, cutting through the dense rhythms like a chainsaw, sending fragmentary ideas flying in all directions. Drummer Nate Smith was a master of tension and release, driving the ensemble with jackhammering beats and bomb-dropping solos. Alex Sipiagin was garrulous and feisty, and Steve Nelson dodged and jabbed with carefully targeted statements on vibes and marimba. Holland himself was also in fine form, digging into every note with a ferocious swing and dazzling with virtuosic, lofty solos.

Christian Wallumrød. Photo by Urban Willi / ECM Records.

Back at Norse Hall the same evening, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble saw Holland’s vigorous brilliance and raised him with depth and abstraction, producing unique music that challenged the very idea of what a jazz festival is about, at least in this country.

Performing without amplification or written arrangements, Wallumrød’s sextet pieces unfolded gradually and quietly. A cinematic score from the world of dreams, Wallumrød’s strange yet lovely compositions combined elements of classical chamber music, the jazz avant-garde, a strong strain of Nordic folksong and something else much more elusive and intimate.

Wallumrød continually found surprising ways to combine the instrumental timbres of his group: merging toneless trumpet sounds with furtive violin, or playing tiny bells against pizzicato cello phrases. His own playing on playing grand piano, toy piano and harmonium was frequently shadowed by harp, creating an effect of gossamer unreality.

While fragile or pastoral melodies cropped up from time to time, this was primarily music built of cycles and pulses, occasionally jolted out of its silky cocoon by abrupt, forceful interludes. It was difficult going at first, as the ambient sounds coming from the restless members of the audience competed with the quiet murmurs from the stage. But as the set progressed and the crowd thinned a bit, leaving only those willing to be still and listen, the room itself seemed to transform and float away, leaving the humdrum world somewhere far behind.

Roy Hargrove; photo courtesy Groovin' High Records

Roy Hargrove and Pharoah Sanders… at first glance it might have looked like a misprint. But it was true.

Kicking off a two-week residency that Yoshi’s hopes to make an annual tradition, Hargrove’s quintet was booked at the club’s San Francisco stage for four nights with saxophonist Sanders as a special guest star. But would this unlikely pairing of divergent musical personalities work? On the one hand was a trumpeter who’s making the jazz mainstream cool again through his quintet, as well as his RH Factor group (playing the second half of the residency this week) and a classic big band. On the other side, an icon of the spiritualistic free-jazz movement, whose passionate, primal channeling of cosmic forces seems wholly at odds with Hargrove’s frictionless grooves.

The results, as displayed to a sell-out crowd in Saturday’s first set, were somewhat mixed. Hargrove was great. Sanders was great. Their brief on-stage collaboration was less than great, but the people got their money’s worth.

Hargrove’s group was fully in sync from the first moment. They opened with “Starmaker,” a cool indigo-toned ballad, then gradually turned up the heat over the next 40 minutes. Looking dapper in tan suit, stingy brim and brand-new Nikes, Hargrove drew a graceful, backwards arc with his body as he soloed, his horn pointing straight ahead. Even-tempered at first, Hargrove stayed warm and cozy on the slower numbers, but flared up and rode his band’s rhythmic surges like a rodeo cowboy, responding to pressure from drummer Montez Coleman with a powerful trill that may have cut a hole in the ozone layer.

When Sanders emerged, with his white beard and intense gaze, the rhythm section suddenly sounded like a completely different band, now playing the outside of the rhythm. Chalk that up to the versatility of Coleman and bassist Ameen Saleem, but even more remarkable was the fluid playing of pianist Sullivan Fortner. In the first half of the show, Fortner’s economical but emotionally rich lines were like a flowing stream, pursuing a multitude of melodic ideas without sacrificing clarity. But behind Sanders, he became a mystic, his playing saturated with ethereal colors as if cast from a stained-glass window. Sanders’ own solo was as serious as your life, building up in density and dynamism from discrete arpeggios to throaty cries.

Hargrove and Sanders stayed clear of each other at first, but came together for two final tunes, “The Serenity of Solitude” and “Camaraderie.” Sanders lost his place in the former, temporarily depriving the lovely, dusky ballad of some harmony, but once he recovered the results were fascinating. Hargrove’s approach to the tune was romantic and sexy. But Sanders came at it with a feeling of deep, devotional reverence that transformed the tune into a kind of prayer.

This last section of the concert was all about the reconciliation of divergent styles — in addition to Hargrove’s cool glide and Sanders’ rootsy fire, alto saxophonist Justin Robinson’s straight-up bebop lines (at one point directly quoting Charlie Parker) added further diversity. But even if a true unity of spirit proved elusive, the experiment was clearly a success. All parties involved played beautifully, and the rhythm section did much to bridge the gaps.

And now Bay Area jazz fans can say it: “I saw Roy and Pharoah play together once. No, really!”

Toshiko Akiyoshi & Lew Tabackin

Early in her 8:00 set at Yoshi’s San Francisco, pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi spoke in charmingly accented English about the salad days of her six-decade career. She said that after spending her youth in Japan absorbing and imitating other pianists, she eventually realized “the need to find my own idiosyncracies.”

The highly individualistic voice she discovered was on prominent display in this hard-swinging quartet gig, along with the turbo-charged sax and flute playing of Akiyoshi’s husband, Lew Tabackin. Although few were on hand to hear this stripped-down alternative to their acclaimed big band, Akiyoshi and Tabackin filled the void with a quirky, vibrant brand of high-energy bebop.

Akiyoshi’s style can take a couple of tunes to adjust to, and her unaccompanied solo break in the opening “Long Yellow Road” (Akiyoshi’s de facto theme song) was like a crash course. Swinging yet fascinatingly mercurial, her left hand sounded tart, staccato chords and sudden dissonant crashes, while her right swirled like a dust devil or fluttered willy-nilly like a butterfly, prancing unpredictably and with impish humor.

Tabackin was the dominant force through much of the set. Solid and square-jawed, bending at the waist and knees, Tabackin scuttled a few steps forward or back in frequent moments of blazing intensity. On tenor saxophone, he provided explosive outbursts linked by flowing supersonic flights, his incredible breath control making it all sound seamless. And his tribute to Coleman Hawkins in “Self Portrait of the Bean” poured out like whiskey, a gruff, bluesy ode to the night owls.

But Tabackin’s finest moment came on flute. “Autumn Sea” felt like a kabuki theatre performance, coming down from Akiyoshi’s bright, bouncing intro to a hauntingly expressive, shakuhachi-like solo, slow and vast, punctuated by stamps of Tabackin’s foot and, later, low mallet work by drummer Mark Taylor.

Taylor and bassist Peter Washington kept the sound fresh with brisk, skipping rhythm, providing just the right balance of straightforward drive and agile openness for the co-leaders’ unique east-west bop attack. It’s a sound that lingers in the ear, idiosyncratic indeed, and greatly satisfying.

The Red Poppy Art House is a funky little nonprofit space hidden in a corner of San Francisco’s Mission District. With scraps of fabric hanging from the ceiling, empty canvas frames suspended in one corner and a provocative slave ship diagram filling the walls, the room certainly has an arty feel. But it’s also a friendly, community-oriented place with sliding-scale admission, an all-volunteer staff and a reputation for booking innovative artists who challenge musical boundaries.

That description sums up bass clarinetist Aaron Novik nicely. Tossing unlikely musical elements into a compelling modern-jazz stew, Novik’s new sextet Thorny Brocky packed the house to overflowing on Saturday night and filled the humid air with richly varied, unfailingly gripping sounds.

Novik’s compositions often feature drifting melodies and thick, dissonant harmonies atop a low, catchy bass pulse. His intricate arrangements favor spiraling, fugue-like buildups and abrupt endings, while Thorny Brocky’s unusual palette of bass clarinet, alto sax, violin, accordion, bass and drums allows for an ever-shifting set of overlapping textures. At any given moment, the violin may double the bass or sax line, or clarinet and accordion might tangle in a tightly wound dance. Novik revels in diverse influences — from Jewish and Balkan folk music to Scandinavian heavy metal and underground animation — but the real distinctiveness of this group comes from a bold sense of rhythm, as they mix up beats in deliciously complex syncopations.

Playing most of the first set without violinist Dina Maccabee, the band explored moody, blossoming grooves. Drummer Jamie Moore distinguished himself early and often with a staccato bob and weave style, sketching the outlines of the rhythms rather than attacking them directly. Novik’s solo on “Soul of a House” was full of little downward cascades that fought against a rising central line, while bassist Lisa Mezzacappa deconstructed the tune’s melody, calmly turning it on its head. Guest vocalist Melody Ferris added a touch of the surreal with floating renditions of verses culled from local “outsider poets,” such as “Goodbye to Bird” — that’s a street pigeon, not Charlie Parker — and the brief but witty “Walking Home from Therapy.”

But it was later, with the full sextet in place, that the band really began to open up, revealing an expansive ensemble sound that constantly reinvented itself. Maccabee’s moaning, melancholy solos and tight interplay with her band mates gave the music greater flow and depth. Marie Abe’s angular, cagey accordion work was loaded with long, sliding tones and winking phrases, at times giving way to slashing rants. And saxophonist Kasey Knudsen kept things edgy and percolating, often working quietly, just beneath the surface.

Early in the evening, Novik described Thorny Brocky as “a cover band of all my old groups,” since most of their repertoire predates the band by several years. But Thorny Brocky already has its own sound: bold, surprising and deeply satisfying. This is a band to watch.

Dave Douglas — photo by Jimmy Katz

It doesn’t require any great insight to realize that Brass Ecstasy — the latest project from polymorphic trumpeter Dave Douglas — takes its inspiration from Brass Fantasy, a boundary-busting ensemble led for many years by the late trumpet trailblazer Lester Bowie. But don’t make the mistake of labeling this a mere tribute band.

Tapping a vein that spans centuries and continents in their early set at Yoshi’s, Douglas and his merry band channeled the street musics of New Orleans and Central Europe, mixing intricate improvisation with the brash exuberance of kids jamming in the Times Square subway station.

Much like Bowie’s group, Douglas’s bold, dexterous quintet — four horns plus drums — posesses virtuoso chops but doesn’t take itself too seriously. Digging into earthy grooves or dropping into overt humor without warning, they keep the audience and each other on their toes. But there is always the sense of deeper layers under the surface, challenging and teasing even as the music glides or stumps along.

When the horns played together, they produced unexpected, expanding tones filled with attractive yet pulpy harmonies, changing instantly from stern clomping to light breezes or slow, gooey flows.

Taken singly, the musicians displayed exciting, unique voices. Douglas exploited the full dynamic range of his instrument — blaring, wide-open notes, warped walking lines laden with swing and bebop quotations, scurrying taunts and silly effects. Marcus Rojas went just as far on tuba, calling forth exotic evocations of didgeridoo and cuica, then engaging in a fantastic dialogue with Vincent Chancey’s French horn that tumbled from a tangled squeal to a spelunking, guttural growl.

The French horn wasn’t really meant to swing, but Chancey made it sound easy. Expressive, buttery and soulful, he worried at high notes and slipped down melodic alleyways, as elusive as mercury. And Luis Bonilla charted thoughtful but technically treacherous course on trombone. As he bobbed and wove, bunching up his torso, it looked for all the world as if his trombone were reaching inside him, physically drawing out those jabbing, acrobatic strings of notes.

Holding it all together, drummer Nasheet Waits not only supported the horns but also filled up the spaces between them. His playing was finely nuanced and effortlessly melodic: even when taking an extended solo at a breakneck pace, Waits’s ceaseless rolling contained wheels within wheels, making his drums breathe and speak.

It’s a pity that the band had only one night in town, in a tough midweek slot that drew perhaps 100 people. For this is a group that should be heard.