Even a torrential downpour on the streets of Soho failed to douse the creative ardour of the opening night of London's F-IRE Collective Festival, a forum for many of the capital's most original jazz players.

As a foretaste of the week, the music spanned fully composed solos by the pianist Mark Donlon and the spontaneous improvising trio of saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, with pianist Liam Noble and the visiting American drummer Tom Rainey. Somewhere in between sat Donlon's straightahead jazz trio, which produced the most absorbing music of the night.

Donlon has played funk with Fred Wesley and Latin music with Roberto Pla, but what was on show here was hard-swinging contemporary jazz with plenty of space for his own knotty keyboard intricacy, and for the virtuoso Hungarian bassist Zoltan Dekany. Both men are tutors on the jazz course at the Leeds College of Music, but there was nothing dusty or pedagogical about their brilliant, focused playing, prodded along by the alert drumming of Paul Clarvis.

Donlon's compositional landscape is a chilly place. His spiky melody lines seem chiselled from stone, even against fast-moving backdrops, and there was none of the romantic tenderness of his contemporaries Esbjorn Svensson or Tord Gustavsen.

Laubrock's open soundworld made a fascinating contrast. Since arriving here from Germany in the mid-1990s she has lived her musical development in public. After a mainstream debut album she went on to the Latin bands Nois and As Meninas before leading a series of consistently more experimental quartets, moving from late Coltrane territory to somewhere much more original.

Now, characterised by remarkable tonal variation and great empathy with Noble's gritty piano textures, the slightly loose sound of their duo came into sharp focus when joined by Rainey's atmospheric drumming. Clinking tones from a half-filled bottle, scattering sticks like matchwood on his drumheads, or thrashing visually graceful arcs above his cymbals, he was a delight both to watch and to hear. A first night of this quality augurs well for the days to come.

The F-IRE Festival continues until Saturday. Box office: 020-7734 3220