The fourth edition of the Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music was set to run in October 2020 until it was scuppered by Covid. To their credit, rather than simply sinking into a morass of takeaways and Netflix, the organisers decided to convert the festival's energy into a record label providing a platform for musicians based in the North-East of England – and further afield. The artists involved aren't just geographically dispersed: this first tranche of releases shows an impressively disparate range of aesthetics, too.

Recorded just before lockdown in February 2020, Copenhagen-based saxophonist and composer Laura Toxværd's Calling presents an improvised interpretation of her own graphic scores, and feels like a crash course in avant-garde strategies. Twin alto saxes played by Toxværd (picture above) and Maria Faust seem to nod towards the braying snicker of Eric Dolphy, the fruity rasp of Albert Ayler and the scrunched skronk of Marshall Allen – often within just a few seconds – as throwaway melodic snippets rise and fall. Meanwhile, Jacob Anderskov's prepared piano tinkers away in the background like a diligent metalworker in his studio, emerging for a few moments as a DIY gamelan orchestra and even tipping a hat to the spacious deliberations of Morton Feldman.

Newcastle-based pianist Paul Taylor's solo album, Via, was performed on the Steinway Grand piano at Sage Gateshead in March 2020 and, though presented as six discrete pieces, works very well as one long suite. Taylor hits the ground running, launching straight into rapid, scampering runs with thorny motifs embedded. Indeed, while Taylor avoids the more explosive excesses of namesake Cecil Taylor, there's a sense in which he entertains a similar notion to CT's ‘unit structures,' locking into clumped patterns, which are systematically explored and discarded. Among the drama, there are moments of exquisite poise, as clouds part revealing tantalising glimpses of fragile beauty. A very assured work indeed.

Representing the jazzier end of the spectrum is bassist John Pope's Quintet featuring tenor player Faye MacCalman and Manchester-based drummer Johnny Hunter. Pope's compositions on Mixed With Glass zing with exuberance – even the wafting, Arkestral balladry of the title track achieves a graceful momentum, while album opener ‘Plato' enjoys a chunky swagger with a fat bass hook and Hunter's drums coming on reliably pneumatic. But, for all its accessibility, the album is also deceptively out. ‘Misha, A Miner' begins as tidy swing with walking bass before dropping into an arco rumble with menacingly buzzing horns. ‘Country Bears, Come North' starts with metronomic soul-jazz rim-shots, dissolves into a slippery free improv interlude and ends as a nicely mobile hit of hard bop. It's a big-hearted debut from a band to watch out for.

Double bassist Andy Champion and tenor saxophonist Graeme Wilson have played together in a bunch of bands around the North East for more than a decade but Shoes For Losers is the first time they've recorded a set of free improvisations. Showing a keen rapport, they investigate a wide range of moods, veering from punchy, intense and demanding intricacies to more austere chamber-improv with cello-like bowed bass and a hint of the AACM about it. Recorded on Valentine's Day 2020, the whole session is a love letter to daring spontaneity.