It's exactly half a century since 1959, something of an annus mirabilis of jazz, being the recording date of three seminal albums — Kind of Blue, Giant Steps and Mingus Ah Um. Their progenitors, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, are all long gone, but Mingus’s feisty widow, Sue, keeps his music alive with a vengeance fuelled by the struggle to hear it performed during his lifetime.

Listening to a brilliant septet drawn from this orchestra last night, one was struck by how well Mingus’s ensemble arrangements are now played, far more precisely than when he was alive. His original soloists were superb but it has taken 50 loving years for section players to reel off his complex orchestral visions. And how proud Charles would have been to find two Russians — bassist Boris Kozlov and trumpeter Alexander Sipiagian —among them, a living embodiment of his multi-racial dream.

Reincarnation of a Love Bird, Mingus’s salute to Charlie Parker, drew impressive solos from Sipiagin and altoist Craig Handy. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, a classic requiem for Lester Young, inspired masterly tenor-sax from London-born Wayne Escoffery and a powerful new vocal — “he took him a white wife and some saw red/ enough to drive them from their hotel bed” — by trombonist Frank Lacey.

A lesser-known Mingus gem, GG Train, featured Donald Edwards, latest in a long line of butt-kicking drummers dating back to the great Dannie Richmond. Give yourself a treat and hear them.
Until tomorrow. Information: 020 7439 0747.