To the evident delight of the audience, the news broke before the gig that Wynton Marsalis's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra would be periodically resident at the Barbican in London from next year – running local gigs, helping to found a new east London youth orchestra, working in schools. The Olympics undoubtedly loom in the background, and deserving jazz causes around the country will raise an eyebrow at another windfall for London. But the impact is likely to be far-reaching.

Fittingly, this concert saw Marsalis opening up to new ideas, something the conservative trumpeter has not always been willing to do. The show was partly built around Cadiz-born jazz/flamenco pianist Chano Domínguez and the remarkable percussionist Israel Suárez Escobar, who goes by the name of El Piraña but looks a lot more affable than that would suggest.

Marsalis's engagement with melodic and rhythmic notions very different from African-American jazz could be heard in some startlingly intricate ensemble writing. Slashing trumpet parts burst out over twisting reeds lines, or simmered over softly glowing trombones. The fast Jason and Jasone fizzed with time changes and snappy melodic turns, while flutes and clarinets clamoured over deep trombone riffs and a flamenco pulse on The Tree of Freedom.

But it was the second set that really raised the temperature. Domínguez's guitar-like rhythms inspired some of Marsalis's most fluidly uninhibited improvising, and the band often handclapped the composer's stamping rhythms. El Piraña's hand-drumming stung the increasingly appreciative jazzmen – particularly drummer Ali Jackson – into ever more urgent rejoinders. It was a real pleasure to hear the sometimes formal LCJO in such a party mood.