The commitment to jazz teaching that has filtered through to the once classical-only UK conservatoires is not only producing highly skilled soloists, it is turning those institutions into hothouses for new, fully formed bands playing original material. London's Vortex club regularly opens its doors to these fledgling ensembles and their entourages. This week saw the promising Symbiosis nine-piece band cram itself on to the stage, playing the elegantly layered music of its young bassist, Royal Academy graduate Yuri Galkin.

Galkin is already spreading his wings, his music having been toured by Tim Garland's Northern Underground Orchestra, with a pedigree lineup including Gwilym Simcock. The Symbiosis group couldn't call up stars like that, but in such rising newcomers as trumpeters Henry Armburg-Jennings and Freddie Gavita, tenorist George Crowley and pianist John Turville, Galkin had all the firepower he needed.

Galkin's writing temptingly hinted at salsa vamps that didn't quite materialise, or which were twisted into contrastingly arrhythmic figures, before resolving briefly into conventionally blaring big-band riffs. A feature called Episode Three had a whimsically drifting, Carla Bley-like atmosphere and shrewd contrapuntal development; it brought pure, glistening notes from Armburg-Jennings, and more cryptic and ambiguous phrasing from tenorist Crowley. One for Fred (dedicated to American pianist Fred Hersch) was built around airily rolling figures periodically vanishing into cushioning horn chords. The Latin-inflected Labyrinth stretched the improvisers' ingenuity, and turned on a striking contrast between the warmth of the ensemble sound and pianist Turville's sparing dialogue with the leader's bass and Dave Hamblett's unfussy drumming.