Hawkins – who must now vie with Shabaka Hutchings as the most ubiquitously hard-working man on the UK jazz scene – returns to the Intakt label for his second trio album for the Swiss imprint.

As Bill Evans consistently demonstrated over a number of decades, the piano/keyboard trio format is one of the most flexible and expressive in all of jazz. There's so much you can do with it, providing you have the imagination. On this showing, Hawkins and his longtime rhythmic companions Neil Charles and Stephen Davis possess this quality in spades.

Carnival Celestial begins quietly, and contemplatively, with the light watercolour wash of ‘Rapture’ but from then on in this is a tempting selection box of styles and textures, ranging from the distinctly uncarnival-esque title track (it's rather like a copper going up to a happily parping Sonny Rollins and saying "Stop that carnival right now!"); via the woozy, storm-tossed ‘Sarabande Celestial’; to the upbeat romp of ‘Counterpoint Celestial’; before returning to the beginning with the synth-dominated wisp of ‘Echo Celestial’.

What is particularly enjoyable about this album, despite its occasional asperities, is the tangibly telepathic link between the three players, with Charles and Davis able to respond to the various caprices of Hawkins’ compositions, as happy with a synth gibber as with a piano trill.