Marius Neset

CD OF THE WEEK:Golden Xplosion Edition*****

Mark the name. At 25, this Norwegian saxophonist will surely be a major figure on the European jazz scene if this astonishing – and astonishingly personal – album is any indication.

It’s not just the virtuoso technique that impresses, although that is already at a level few saxophonists can live with. Nor is it just Neset’s distinctiveness as a composer. Both these aspects are part of a package that is given shape and focus by that indefinable extra factor that adds up to a unique musical personality. And Neset stamps it all over this album and on a quartet that also includes such formidable, in-form musicians as pianist and keyboard player Django Bates and, from the superb trio Phronesis, the great bassist Jasper Høiby and drummer Anton Eger.

Neset’s earliest influence on tenor was the late Michael Brecker, and though Brecker’s headlong drive is evident in his often ferocious playing, here he displays more affinity with the late Joe Henderson.

A key part of what makes Neset unique, however, is his remarkable rhythmic facility. This not only allows him to thrive on the interplay between bass and drums in particular – the tenor, bass and drum work on Shame Usis as brilliantly secure as anything Sonny Rollins or Henderson did in a similar setting – but also seems to inspire the figures and lines he creates both as a soloist and composer.

Neset has a composer's instinct to develop motifs contrapuntally to build texture and drama, and to temper and order the surge of group improvisation with centres of reference. But none of these accounts for the sheer imaginative ferocity, rhythmic and linear complexity of City on Fire, Golden Xplosionand its prologue, with the quartet united in precision and risk-taking adventure. Nor do they account for Neset's equally persuasive capacity for creating beauty from the multiphonics and overdubs of the gorgeous Saxophone Intermezzo IIand the aptly titled Epilogue, or the one-man band of the infectious The Real YSJ.

As for the group, its cohesion, responsiveness and flexibility in the face of such demanding new music is remarkable, particularly the rapport between Neset and Høiby, reaching a collective peak on the multifaceted Angel of the North. Good as they are, though, this is Neset's album. See editionrecords.com