The Eastside Jazz Club, Leytonstone, London E11 

HERE’s an unlikely venue for some hot jazz: the Leytonstone Ex-Serviceman’s Club, East London. 

Up the stairs and it’s a large, comfortable chamber with a lively bar and excellent acoustics. And who were playing tonight? A quartet of Caribbean-rooted luminaries with powerful, liberating sounds, led by saxophonist Vaughan Hawthorne-Nelson, with Stepney-born drummer Mark Mondesir, master pianist Robert Mitchell from just up the Central Line in Gants Hill, and veteran bassist Larry Bartley.

Hawthorne-Nelson’s prowess on alto and soprano saxophones is outstanding. As he opened with his alto’s fleeting, lightning runs on his own tune, Cereal Killer, with Mitchell swinging his keys like a sonic athlete, Bartley walking his bass expertly and Mondesir chomping on his drums, it was soon clear that this was to be a luminous night of music.

The mood changed as Hawthorne-Nelson picked up his soprano and played his passionately provocative Pain, with a beautiful almost weeping melodism as if every note were a tear. The ambiance was sustained by the equally moving Peace for Palestine, which even in a venue radiating an ex-military ethos, created a strange but poignant anti-war aura.

Throughout, Hawthorne-Nelson retained his affecting, emotive tone, never overblowing, always restrained in his artistry, and as he moved into a most evocative coda for the final notes of his reading of the songbook ballad, My Ideal, hearts stopped all through the venue.

His tribute to Coltrane showed where his true signature lay, as this English Caribbean quartet clarified to everyone listening that for that night at least, Leytonstone belonged to them, and the people of Palestine too.

Future highlights: February 11 Tomorrow’s New Quartet, February 18 Alex Clarke/Eddie Gripper Quartet, March 4 QOW Quartet, March 11 Emily Massa