Robert Glasper

It is five years since Robert Glasper's CD Canvas successfully married time-bending hip-hop with the free flow of a classic jazz piano trio. It launched the Houston-born pianist on a rigorous touring schedule and now, with core concepts successfully established, Glasper's trio oozes authority.

Like the equally authoritative trumpeter Christian Scott, whose quintet raised the roof at Ronnie's last week, he connects jazz to contemporary urban sounds without tinkering with authenticity. And like Scott, Glasper goes way back with his colleagues - Glasper's "Yes I'm Country (and that's OK)" celebrates all three going to the same high school. But whereas Scott caps mood-shifting rhythms with ebullient solos, Glasper creates dense textures from a three-way dialogue, turning from rhapsody to bittersweet blues on the point of a pin.

Long-term drummer Chris Dave is central to the trio's potency, and at this gig he was set up to face Glasper across the stage. Over the years they have become something of a musical odd couple, with Glasper the straight man - his lines at the centre of the beat - and Dave the anarchic partner, stretching the pulse to its limits. There were even some rather stagey on-stage spats.

The music, though, is top drawer, playfully experimental and oozing confidence. Glasper opened with just the piano's foot-pedals - they sounded like an off-kilter heart beat - Dave rattled the side of his snare cueing a bendy walking bass line. Over two sets, the trio whirled through Glasper's back catalogue of original compositions, quirky covers and jazz legacy, impressively retaining the underlying structure while changing tack with odd juxtapositions and much applauded rhythmic tricks.

The trio also generates an imperious swing with bassist Alan Hampton's improvised thumps and off-beam beats muscling in on Dave's stripped down shuffles, hi-hat rolls and clattery snare. Glasper rippled and rolled, curling the melodies of Björk and Radiohead round Herbie Hancock's "Butterfly" and "Maiden Voyage" and, in these circumstances, accommodated a somewhat strange request - "Send in the Clowns". While the audience chuckled, he played it, rather beautifully.