We need be gentle with Luft. He's spectacularly talented, but there can be costs to being the hardest working man in jazz. Luff's been lavishly lauded – and rightly so – for five years of telling contributions to jazz in its many colours. He's done mainstream jazz classico with Dave O'Higgins, rootled around in Albanian folk and played with several Loose Tubes alumni. And that's just a slice of his CV.

But mentor Phil Robson was also protective of him and probably with wise reason. There's a rainbow ebullience to Luft's playing that is amply illustrated on Life is the Dancer. The opening ‘Berlin’ has a remorseless autobahn drive to it climaxing in his now signature, spine melting distortion. The title track taps Luft's love of West African rhythms and features a full blooded Wallen solo before it jumbles into a dancey jamboree. By contrast ‘Tanpura’ is a microtonal meditation (Derek Trucks on his intro to ‘Midnight In Harlem’ anyone?).

Each track indeed has the tang of originality, but Luft remains grounded, largely because he's with his regular band that so contained him on his sparkling debut, Riser. Life is indeed the dancer, but heed the red shoes of endless ever expanding horizons that can dance you away, who knows whither.