IS IT my imagination, or does this year’s capital bash have a stronger look? If the timing always seems odd — there is a reason why the most famous jazz documentary is called Jazz on a Summer’s Day rather than Jazz in a Slightly Damp November — the programme strikes a better balance between established names, second-tier acts and world music interlopers.

Over the years, one long- running theme of the event is that Europe now punches at the same weight as America. Whether that reflects reality or merely the realities of the bottom line, there was no question that the big event of the opening night was the Wigmore Hall performance by the Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen and his trio, a favourite with the audience of Late Junction on Radio 3. The presenter Fiona Talkington duly introduced the band in terms that would have done justice to Horowitz’s return from the grave.

Gustavsen has been receiving rave reviews across the planet. Whether his music is really so very different from the relentlessly self-conscious Nordic soundscapes that have become a speciality of the ECM label is another matter. There is a slightly stronger melodic strain to his improvisations — folk tunes and hymn-like voicings melt into understated blues riffs — but the constant introversion, the studiedly narrow dynamics and the static left-hand figures grow claustrophobic after a few numbers. Measure Gustavsen against Ahmad Jamal — whose electrifying Barbican set earlier this year is burnt into my memory — and you get a better sense of where he belongs in the hierarchy. The Wigmore Hall devotees seemed to disagree, however.

Across town at Pizza On The Park it was encouraging to see such a strong turnout for the poised young singer Marta Topferova. Born in the Czech Republic but now a resident of New York, she has emerged as one of the most graceful interpreters of Latin American folk music (hearing the Chilean band Inti-Illimani set her on this unusual path). Playing the toy-like cuatro guitar and accompanied by just a double-bass player and flautist, Topferova delivered a mesmerising, husky set. Remember the name.

And at Pizza Express Jazz Club, there was a brief, quirky display by the saxophonist and Groucho Marx lookalike Roy Nathanson (sometime collaborator with the former Blondie star Deborah Harry). After the witching hour the American trio Bad Plus made a brief appearance, as did the former enfant terrible Archie Shepp, who unburdened himself of some typically wheezy tenor solos, not to mention some even wheezier vocals. The hip audience looked on reverently. He is a living legend, after all.