Saxophonist and composer Alex Hitchcock formed this band for his 2016 postgrad finals at the Royal Academy of Music, and this plainly-produced but expressive four-track live EP (recorded in London in 2016 and Cambridge a year later) highlights the already much-admired eloquence of his playing, his striking compositions, and his fine collaborators. Originally inspired to play tenor by Coleman Hawkins and Joshua Redman, and including Laura Jurd, Ambrose Akinmusire and Phronesis among his compositional models, Hitchcock also learned much from directing the Cambridge University Jazz Orchestra while an English Lit student there. The London gig's ‘Happy Ending’ is an adroit splice of asymmetrical bass throbs and drumlike melodies with a breezy swing feel, and ‘Gift Horse’ joins a haunting song suggestive of Kenny Wheeler's melancholic tenderness to an edgy, contemporary-funk hustle. The slow melody of ‘Context’ (from 2017) is tugged at by ethereal harmonies and coolly out-of-phase horn lines, and the tersely timebending ‘Wojciech’ spurs surefooted improv from the rhythmicallyunfazeable Hitchcock, a scorching trumpet break from the brilliant James Copus, and evidence from pianist Will Barry that his chordal drive, when the grooving gets hot, is as creative as the linear fluency he shows – on Fender Rhodes in 2016 and acoustic piano in 2017 – throughout the EP. It's an impressive calling-card for a band with a bright future.