12 Points! Sunday

Time: 19:00 - Eve Beuvens Trio, Brussel/Belgium

Confident and agile, pianist Eve Beuvens brings music that is fresh, intelligent and contemporary in its aspect. Her first passion was the double bass, but she has been a pianist since the age of thirteen, and she has absorbed much along the way.  She exposes considerable rhythmic forces, as if looking toward Mehldau, with Tristano in the rear view mirror. Nordzee, her latest release for Belgian label Igloo, heralds a new personality in Europe’s potent piano scene, and her trio equals, bassist Yannick Peeters and drummer Lionel Beuvens, are fine emissaries for the new breed in Belgium.

Time: 20:30 - Lorenz Raab: XY-Band, Vienna/Austria

Trumpeter Lorenz Raab is a genuine stylistic hybrid who moves easily between different quarters of the Viennese music scene. XY-Band was borne of an invitation to the Saalfelden Festival and is a study in modal dynamics that has some of the Zen like qualities of ECM artist Nik Bartsch.  A pair of bassists provides fresh texture and counterpoint, roles that move back and forth between Raphael Preuschl and Oliver Steger, pulse is further enhanced by drummer Herbert Pirker, while Christof Dienz is the free agent that responds to Raab’s elegant and considered lines, as he brings the traditional Austrian zither into previously unexplored contexts.

Time: 22:00 - Trio VD, Leeds/UK

There is plenty of bracing music to be heard from the new generation of UK jazz, nowhere more so than in Leeds, home to Trio VD. Guitarist Chris Sharkey, saxophonist Christophe de Bézenac and drummer Chris Bussey are the three musicians unleashing a chaotic sonic energy that comes to rest somewhere between The Thing and Meshuggah. Confrontational, uninhibited and clever, their use of volatile materials is stimulating and their demonic humour is catching.