The Wisconsin-born Janisch has proved himself a tireless catalyst for exchanges between New York and European musicians on the open-minded side of post-bop playing in London over the past five years or so. Add to that a recording label that he's been quietly plugging away at, a prolific release schedule (Partikel, Andre Canniere, Zhenya Strigalev and Jim Hart are among this year's standouts) and we still haven't got round to discussing his double bass work. On this new recording (his second on the label) Janisch co-leads a quintet with the Wallace Roney sideman, New York-based Cuban pianist Aruán Ortiz, live at Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club, on a gig that was part of last year's London Jazz Festival. Unlike his 2010 Transatlantic group debut CD Purpose Built, this is an all-American affair bar the expressive Barcelona-based trumpeter Raynald Colom. The band don't need any warming up as Janisch's bass starts the engine with typical vigour in a Mingus-ish vocalised sequence leading to a grinding funkrock groove for his ‘Precisely Now’. The idiosyncratic alto saxophonist Greg Osby is at his most sensuously labyrinthine on the version here of Fats Waller's ‘Jitterbug Waltz’ while remaining wedded to the theme, as does pianist Ortiz who dishes out his best, and craftily flamboyant solo of the night. Elsewhere Osby displays something of Lee Konitz's more intimate, probing sound (Janisch will release a recording with the legendary altoist next year) on Monk's ‘Ask Me Now’. It's an explosive, well-balanced set and the horns sound invigorated by the band's feisty piano-bass leadership.