While not exactly in the Disney league, the organisation that perpetuates the legacy of the great Charles Mingus is a colossus by the standards of the jazz world. A mercurial figure whose achievements rivalled Duke Ellington’s, the bassist died 30 years ago after being struck down by a wasting illness. Thanks to the efforts of his charismatic widow, Sue, his music is reaching a wider audience than ever.

Most of the media coverage in the past decade has centred on the rambunctious Mingus Big Band, which has played a string of hip residencies including the Time Café in New York. There is, too, its sister outfit, the chamber ensemble known as the Mingus Orchestra. Last but certainly not least comes the seven-piece Mingus Dynasty. Actually the oldest of the three rotating units, it was formed just after the composer’s death. In terms of sheer spectacle, the big band is the most compelling, especially when the volatile trombonist-cum-showman Ku-umba Frank Lacy is on form. That said, the Dynasty, being a much leaner animal, is less prone to self-indulgence and performs with a rare degree of precision.

On opening night, the bassist Boris Kozlov felt obliged to apologise for any fatigue, explaining that the musicians had just flown in from a festival in Estoril. There were, though, few signs of tiredness in a programme that made room for those old favourites Reincarnation of a Lovebird and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. The drummer Donald Edwards effortlessly led the group through the sequence of rhythmic twists on Just for Laughs (a tune also known as Remember Rockefeller at Attica). The altoist Craig Handy took centre-stage on Reincarnation of a Lovebird, swooping through the cadenza.

Koslov directed proceedings with minimal hand gestures throughout, while Orrin Evans supplied terse piano figures. On Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, the famous elegy for Lester Young, the tenorist Wayne Escoffery etched the theme over Koslov’s bowed bass before Lacy stepped forward to sing the lyrics written by Mingus’s admirer Joni Mitchell. Not her most poetic work, admittedly, but Lacy’s husky voice was haunting all the same.

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