This is a five-track live selection from the intricately postboppish set played at London's Pizza Express in July 2010 by the Anglo-US Cloudmakers group, led by vibraphonist Jim Hart with bassist Michael Janisch and drummer Dave Smith, with the accomplished trumpeter Ralph Alessi guesting. As at the gigs, Hart's theme Passwords is a highlight – a rising, twisting, staccato piece over a fast pulse that loosens Alessi's full repertoire of full-toned improv lines, before a contrasting and mercurial vibes solo by the composer. Alessi knows the jazz tradition well, but takes his pick on phrasing – he displays agility, wide range, and lines that suggest contemporary classical music as much as jazz. Alessi's loops-influenced postbopper, Morbid Curiosity, is inventively varied at the end by Smith's drums, and Hart's 13-minute A Door in the Wall is a rising and falling series of one-note patterns becoming a dolorous trumpet/vibes theme. The track Improv is as free as it sounds but consistently melodic, and Thelonious Monk's Bye-Ya (the only cover) features the whole group at its most organic. It's clever, lyrical, immaculately performed contemporary jazz.