Tom Green’s Septet is a very close-knit working band, in a personal as well as artistic sense, and this is a big positive on new album Tipping Point. Most of them, including the award-winning young composer-trombonist-leader, are alumni from the Royal Academy of Music and some go back even further. Green’s melody-focussed compositions and arrangements are refreshing, real tunes often being in short supply in contemporary jazz circles. This is epitomised by the title track with its instant yet well-developed zigzagging theme. There’s also impressive soloing that never seems to stray from a warm Afro-Cuban-ish groove, and a classy dovetailing of trumpet and saxes points to the richly nuanced arrangements featured throughout the disc. Green is a member of Misha Mullov-Abbado’s quintet and the bassist does much to anchor the charts with old-school solidity. In spite of a gentle and sometimes pastoral quality, the music also suggests hotter inflections from South Africa and the Caribbean, as well as the influence of contemporary large ensemble fusion maestros such as Vince Mendoza, and soul jazz in the shape of Sam James’ Jarrett-ish piano on an unadorned arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s ‘My Old Man’, the only non-original. It’s a classy yet unfussy showing from a young musician who, without the benefits of riding any new wave of jazz, leads one of the best of the ‘new generation’ larger ensembles.