Bassist McBride is a kind of latter-day Pied Piper, a jazz activist as well as a virtuoso player, constantly teaching, proselytising, performing and generally exploring all sorts of musical possibilities. This is his new quartet, currently touring worldwide, ‘Jawn’ apparently Philadelphia slang for ‘thing’ or ‘joint’, so make of that what you will. Semantics aside, it’s a feisty group, with the leader’s succulent basslines at its centre, Waits offering a gritty rhythmic counterpoint as the frontliners ebb and flow. Strickland is a known entity these days, always a resourceful improviser, and clearly relishes the chance, as on his own ’The Middle Man’, to battle it out with Waits, before Evans, a new name to me, comes in with his brittle attack and Cherry-like fervency. Indeed, McBride’s opening ‘Walkin’ Funny’ is about as wilfully Ornette-like as you’ll get with its see-saw shape and some pretty wild playing from the band, Evans spitting out his notes. Each man contributes originals to the album with Evans at his most lyrical on his ‘Ballad of Ernie Washington’, while ‘Kush’ by Waits is similarly reflective, hymn-like in its theme and development, McBride’s arco bass and Strickland’s bass-clarinet making for a beautiful resolution. ‘Seek The Source’ moves into more conventional hard-bop country, over an ostinato bass riff, its jaunty theme inspiring Strickland to a Rollins-like extended exposition, the quartet responding well to its clarion call. Highly varied, often fragmentary, yet capable of surprises, this is a group clearly used to thinking on its feet: nothing anodyne or routine here, with Evans a talent to watch.