IT is a mixture so bizarre even a bored musicologist couldn't invent it: a New York banjo player of some style who shares a Christian name with a modern Hungarian composer, a bass guitarist so good he can make his instrument sound like Spanish guitar; a saxophonist equally capable on tenor and soprano, and the most bizarre instrument I have ever seen, played by a fellow referred to only as the Future Man.

Together they mix and match styles with ease, eventually settling on a very loose form of jazz that is harmonically beautiful, takes solos regularly and attempts some ambitious time signatures.

The results range from the up-tempo Almost Twelve to the lyrical Who's Got Three?, but always tend towards the charming. With such technical proficiency there is inevitably the occasional passage of meandering virtuosity, but when our own Paul Brady joined them there was a perfect match of Brady's focused thinking, with Fleck's musical authority that produced something marvellous.