The Pendulum@JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St Doors open 8pm 12/10 01-6703885 www.improvisedmusic.ie

Under the rubric NYNow, the Improvised Music Company inaugurates a new series of visits by groups from New York. Since the city is still the jazz capital of the world, it’s a heavyweight line-up. The youthful joint leaders, alto saxophonist Will Vinson and guitarist Lage Lund, have pedigree. Londoner Vinson, based in New York over the past decade, is a Mingus Big Band alumnus, while Norwegian- born Lund won the Thelonious Monk prize in 2004, a fiercely contested award that, with luck, judgment and dedication, can provide an entree into the highest levels in jazz.

Providing the rhythm section are two hugely talented musicians in the British Orlando Fleming, a familiar, front-rank bassist on both the New York and European scenes, who has toured with Dave Liebman and George Coleman; and the German drummer Jochen Rückert, based in New York since 1995, whose experience includes the bands of Marc Copland, Nils Wogram, Mark Turner and John Abercrombie.

If this is a marker for the rest of the series, it is a bit special.

Can’t see that? Catch this

Honor Heffernan and the Jim Doherty TrioNCH, Mon