Jazz isn't all about leaders; the particular alchemy of any great ensemble is as much about the sidemen and women as it is about the – usually – man at front and centre. Alison Rayner has been a mainstay of the UK jazz scene for the best part of four decades and has stamped her identity on groups such as the Guest Stars, but this is her debut release under her own name; and very accomplished it is too. Recorded live at the Vortex in London in summer 2013, it demonstrates her wide range of playing and writing skills. Funk and soul-jazz influences are to the fore on the likes of ‘Dig Over’ (with its overt not to Sly Stone) and ‘Hyperbubble’, ‘Elegy for Art’ is a tender hymn for Rayner's father, while the captivating ‘Vejer de la Frontera’, inspired by the Andalusian town of the same name and featuring a fine solo from regular Rayner collaborator Deirdre Cartwright on guitar, explores more open, quietly reflective sonorities. After that, the quintet quit Spain for the Big Apple sound-wise and plunge deep into the boppish territory of ‘Queer Bird’. It's a stylish, satisfyingly varied debut – released not a moment too soon.