Steve Baker is one of the myriad musicians and composers you will have heard but probably not heard of. As a media composer he has produced decades of TV, radio and library music – the theme music for Escape To The Country is one of his – but Tonic, some 10 years in the making, is his debut as bandleader. And what a band.

A quick scan of the personnel above reveals some of the classiest names in the UK jazz scene, as well as a tantalising spread of instrumental flavours. It’s an opulence of resources that is highly rewarding when a number like ‘Rightly Said’ follows its Ellingtonian piano intro with a tight and jaunty big band energy. The 3-time opening initiates a wilfully discontinuous sequence of musical voices and a false ending before revelling in a splendidly chaotic final groove-out.

By contrast, the available sound palette is more discreetly deployed for the soundscape of ‘False Relation (Part 2)’, a gently assembled orchestral piece. Sometimes, however, a multitude of tasty sonic ingredients only glimpsed in passing can feel top heavy and ‘The Garden’ maybe suffers from such an overload.

Combining individual talents in tightly-scored collective music is always a challenge – the likes of Carla Bley and Charles Mingus could write their regular personnel into their work, of course – but Baker pulls it off best in the atmospheric and complex ‘Riley’ with its orchestral sweeps over busy rhythms and the gulping pulse of Ghatam Suresh’s ghatam.