AT SOHO’S Pizza Express, Eddie Gomez, Puerto Rican-born bassist of the Bill Evans Trio and a Dizzy Gillespie alumnus, dug into a veteran’s groove with his swinging Italian bandmates.

His springing, resonant strings bounced into Cheeks, his tribute to Gillespie and the beautifully etched, deeply throbbing melodism of the lingering tune Ariana stayed long in the mind.

Among the host of tomes in Foyles’s West End bookshop, saxophonist Binker Golding and pianist Elliot Galvin played together with such an intimacy it’s as if both musicians were inside each others’ instruments, so telepathic was their improvising union.