For the second week running, the Spin Jazz Club has had the courage to feature international bands that are relatively unknown. Paragon is an Anglo-German quartet of young musicians that has recently brought out its first album, but glance at the background of all four members and you discover a wealth of experience and activity.

Headed by German saxophonist Peter Ehwald, simultaneously active in various projects, Paragon manages to approach jazz from a number of divergent angles without losing direction or coherence. In the title track to the album, Never Rent a Flat, Ehwald's tenor playing has the raw dissonant energy and wide-ranging phrasing of Brecker moving towards Ayler, while in Southbound, another Ehwald composition reflecting on long tube journeys, he produces a full dense tone on tenor to colour the slow opening passages. In the same number Arthur Lea on Fender Rhodes, in duet with bassist Matthias Nowak, dug into a deep groove using the Fender keyboard to best effect, while Novak seemed to predict with uncanny certainty where Lea was going to shift the beat.

In contrast to this, Lea occasionally picked up a tenor horn, the same instrument favoured by Django Bates, to play some delightfully melodic harmonies with Ehwald striking up moments of playful lightness to counter the drive and complexities of other pieces. Further contrast was to be found in a composition by the drummer Ben Bryant called Yum Yum and dedicated to his love of chocolate. Instead of a heavy drum-led groove, this was a slow, almost lugubrious, yet twisting tune where Bryant used only brushes and Lea again dug into a rich groove. With playful humour, Ehwald introduced another of his tunes reflecting the fruitlessness of late-night debate, which he translated into English as Dangerous Semi-knowledge. Here the aggressive and soft side of his playing was brought together into one composition that twisted and turned in waltz time, a musical evocation of those conversations in which we all know how to save the world.

They may not be life-savers but Paragon are a group able to breath a good blast of fresh air into jazz without attempting to overstretch the boundaries.