Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival review: Enrico Zanisi & Co, St Bride’s Centre

Think of Enrico Zanisi as a musical quizmaster. The amiable Italian piano maestro embarks on extended improvisational excursions, assuring us he’s not exactly sure what he’s going to play but he’ll let us know eventually. It’s left to the listener sometimes to disentangle whatever melody is being put through improvisational hoops.

Some proved more elusive than others. It was mighty impressive, although around 11 in the evening this intensely introspective keyboard questing could become wearing, but there were also magic moments.

His opening explorations of two standards, Black Narcissus and Body and Soul, ranged through ethereal deliberations to off-kilter boogie and sudden flurries of notes, his own Il Volo travelled to a bluesy climax, while the familiar theme of Schumann’s Träumerei was given delicate tension before being taken on harmonic adventures that included solemn tolling and Middle Eastern-sounding elaborations.

Debussy’s familiar Clair de Lune worked its old moon magic while incorporating sly echoes of Burt Bacharach’s Alfie.

The bar had been raised high in the first half by the Scottish duo of tenor saxophonist Helena Kay and pianist Alan Benzie. Usually heard individually in other company, they knitted easefully in a highly engaging set that rather begged them to record together. They opened with Kay’s jaunty Amor y Amargo, including a perkily inventive break from Benzie, while the pianist’s Old Haunts steered wistfulness to a more upbeat conclusion. Also by Benzie, the atmospheric Midnight Café was a sort of musical Hopper canvas, with suitably smoky-toned tenor from Kay.

Sax and piano sparred nicely in the Scots-folk-accented Shire-ish and they closed with the title tune of Kay’s current album, Golden Sands, in a fondly pensive sign-off.