There is probably no other player in this country who occupies the same position of respect on the international scene as Julian Joseph. It was therefore another coup for the Spin to have got his Electric Band down to Oxford, and it is a mark of a well-informed audience that all seats were sold well in advance.

In fact, the quartet was reduced to a trio owing to the guitarist Adam Salkeld's ill health, and for about ten seconds at the beginning of the first number I wondered if a trio playing loud jazz/rock/funk could keep us entertained on their own for a whole evening. After 15 seconds, it was clear that entertain' is too slight a word. Think of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Weather Report and you get an idea of the sound filling an upstairs room in the High Street.

Julian Joseph, playing a Fender Rhodes, the great electric keyboard of the seventies, could lay down a groove all on his own. Add to this the unwavering bass of Mark Hodgson and feet cannot stay still. But further adorn with the quite extraordinary and electrifying drumming of Mark Mondesir and everything moves into the stratosphere.

Throughout the first half of the evening, only Hodgson's bass kept a solid line, while the piano and drums threw out multiple grooves and riffs that went straight to the solar plexus. This was music so exciting and performed so effortlessly that it defies verbal description. The best image is that the whole audience were stunned into silence, and a little old lady near me was moving with the groove.

What was perhaps most astonishing was the complexity of the pieces. Many, like Joseph's own Nocturnal Piece, were epic journeys of their own with sequences of melodies, rhythms well out side the conventional three or four in a bar and sudden changes in dynamic that can only be achieved by great musicians perfectly atuned. When the piano hung on a single phrase, the drums took over the lead, only to drop back to a whisper of cymbals as Julian Joseph broke out into another avenue on the right hand.

In the second half, Mark Hodgson relaxed into some fleet-fingered bass solos, so we were also joined by the spirit of Marcus Miller by the end of what has to have been one of the greatest evenings at the Spin.