Among contemporary heirs to the piano legacy of the late Cecil Taylor, the Grammy-winning Canadian pianist and composer Kris Davis is one of the shrewdest navigators between hooks, idiosyncratic improv and ensemble eloquence.

But though this double set, sifted from a week of Village Vanguard gigs in May 2022, is for a smaller group with fewer quirky guests than the 2019 Davis album Diatom Ribbons that gave this group its name, the impact is just as arresting. Davis and guitarist Julian Lage (the latter sounding comfortable echoing everything from Mary Halvorson's wide-interval angularities to the classic-bop fluency of Jim Hall) dominate the soloing, but turntablist Val Jeanty is also a crucial textural presence, and the bass and drums partnership of Trevor Dunn and Terri Lyne Carrington is superb.

There are muscular Davis reworkings of pieces by Ronald Shannon Jackson (a clamorous, chattering ‘Alice In The Congo’); Geri Allen (a slow, minimally-circling ‘The Dancer’); and Wayne Shorter (two surging bop/swing versions of ‘Dolores’), while seven strikingly different tracks are the leader's own. ‘Nine Hats’ turns on slowly repeating guitar figures becoming a dancing motif embroidered by electronics; the trundling, throbbing ‘VW’ wraps around a radio interview with Sun Ra; ‘Bird Call Blues’ is a modern-bebop cruiser laced with birdsong; and an interview with Paul Bley about the Bird himself, Charlie Parker.

Davis herself can be Monkish and flinty or Tayloresque and torrential, and the drifting, sidewise progress of her tunes is constantly compelling, however enigmatic it can sometimes seem at first.