Julian Joseph was at a slight disadvantage at the Spin on May 22. His long-standing drummer Mark Mondesir, who has an extraordinary empathy with his playing, had been poached by Pat Metheny for a European tour. He had also just been given a new keyboard by a leading manufacturer and admitted he was not yet familiar with all the controls, with the result that he hadn't found the digital setting to emulate the Fender Rhodes he brought to the Spin on his last visit. The rather thin electronic voicing he used all evening seemed to jar somewhat with the original material played. His brother James Joseph, who took over on drums, is eminently capable and very familiar with Julian's music, but he could not attempt to match the almost magical responses of Mondesir.

Nevertheless, Joseph is a player of sufficient depth and stature to rise above these disadvantages. Without recourse to complex melodies or intricate harmonies, he has the ability to give intensity and drive to the music by working with the rhythmic patterns, stating a phrase, inverting it, shifting it across the rhythm so as to push it this way and that over the beat like a magician with a musical pack of cards. He is able to do this with phrases in the right hand and in thick, modulated chordal passages. Only occasionally does he allow his right hand to fly up the keyboard with a sudden burst of technical virtuosity that is thus all the more magical.

The effortless effect of this playing is, of course, heightened by the bass lines from Mark Hodgson who has the fullness of tone and lightness of touch to perfectly underpin these shifting tonescapes from Joseph. This is playing that seems to be coming straight from a musical heart, which many young musicians with their minds full of complexity and cunning could well learn from. Proof of Joseph's ability to really hit a groove was provided when he managed to get the generally serious Spin audience to sing along to The Ghetto at the end of the evening.