Monday 6th February at 11pm on BBC Radio 3

This week, an assembly you’ll want to attend! Jazz on 3 brings you four of New York’s experimental elite, individuals at the heart of an ever-exciting Brooklyn based music scene who come together as The Thirteenth Assembly. We caught them late last year at The Vortex, north London, and the band delivered a lesson in blending the composed and the improvised.

Mary Halvorson (guitar), Jessica Pavone (viola), Tomas Fujiwara (drums) and Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet) are all leaders in their own right, but share the compositional duties here for the unusual instrumentation of this quartet. And in between sets, we get a sense of the minds in which tonight’s music has developed, as Mary and Tomas join me down the line to talk about key tracks that inform their work. What comes across is a love of unusual textures and off-kilter grooves, as well as an obsession with Robert Wyatt verging on the fanatical! (Mary confesses to having listened to his Rock Bottom album more than 500 times, that’s more than me! Something of this immersion is reflected in her Unfinished Ballad, one of the pieces performed in the gig).

Back in the UK, the BBC Introducing scheme continues to turn up interesting new music from British bands, and this week’s programme opens with a pick from alto player Seb Pipe. With three albums under his belt Seb is no new-comer to the UK jazz scene, but still moving somewhat 'under the radar' he's definitely deserving of wider recognition.

So join me at 11pm on Monday 6 February on BBC Radio 3, or listen on iPlayer for 7 days after broadcast.

Jez