For a long week this month, innumerable venues in London became part of the London Jazz Festival. The festival gets sufficient sponsorship to allow for an extraordinarily wide spectrum of music from jazz greats like Sonny Rollins, through to adventures in multimedia sound such as Orphy Robinson's Arts Council Commission, Routes Through Roots and free gigs such as Barry Green and veteran bassist Dave Green at Ray's Jazz in Foyles.

French-Serbian pianist Bojan Z appeared at Pizza Express with his own trio and received fierce applause from a dedicated audience. Playing both conventional piano and a customised Fender Rhodes, Bojan Z was both elegantly assured and dauntingly muscular and well supported by Matt Linke's sharply layered drumming. The first set of the evening had virtuoso trombonist Annie Whitehead accompanied by Steve Lodder putting down some rich blues and solid grooves.

In some events the definition of jazz was pushed to the edge. Southbank's artist in residence, Barry Adamson, despite his evident love of the genre has his own take in his soul/r&b songs with a jazz edge and nourish' lyrics. He is a singer with a rich voice, strong stage presence but an over-dominant use of electronic backing from a lonely laptop.

On the last Sunday, the Monk Liberation Front set out to play the whole of Monk's compositions through three sets. In the first the music felt pedestrian, apart from some free blowing by Tony Kofi, until vibes player Corey Mwamba introduced some wit and originality.

Later the same evening, the Purcell Room was the venue for Adventures in Sound, a number of short sets showing where jazz can really go in the 21st century. This included a magnificent duo with Oxford's Pat Thomas and saxophonist Steve Williamson, where Thomas showed what you can really do with a piano, an extraordinary high-energy but tightly arranged set from New York's Gutbucket and three specially commissioned pieces played with wonderful precision by the Tom Arthurs Trio. Through all the avenues of jazz it was uplifting finally to hear music that pointed into the future with imagination and energy.