Mark-Anthony Turnage's latest work, a suite of British and American songs with water as their common theme, extends his love-affair with jazz and spirituals. Blood on the Floor (1996) and Scorch (2006) featured American guitar ace John Scofield. Friday's world premiere involved the 25-piece London Sinfonietta, vocalist Barb Jungr and three jazz stars - US bass virtuoso John Patitucci and London-based pianist Gwilym Simcock and tenorist Mark Lockheart.

Sadly, these bobbydazzlers sat on their hands for long periods while the orchestra, vigorously conducted by Stefan Asbury, strove for collective moments of post-Gershwin symphonic swing. Turnage writes skilfully for strings, with dense harmonies and plenty of movement, but his brass and woodwind parts were largely unisons which boiled down to Martin Robertson's lonely recorder and soprano-sax or the solo cello of the composer's wife, Gabriella Swallow.

It would have been a much paler evening without Jungr. Wide-eyed and expressive, she contributed original lyrics and delivered every song with passionate commitment. If her version of Take Me to the River lingers longest in the memory, it's because the jazz colourists, particularly Simcock and the mighty Patitucci, were so criminally underemployed. Given half a chance, they might have taught the Sinfonietta's percussion section a few things about grooving.

Alert though these gentlemen were, to jazz eyes there is always something faintly comical about a player stiffly sight-reading bongo-beats, cymbal crashes, bass-drum booms and the occasional vibraphone chord. Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay has never sounded less laid-back.