Stan Tracey 75th Birthday Concert, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

When the going gets rough

During a slow patch a few years ago, Stan Tracey considered giving up the jazz lark and becoming a postman instead. We should be extremely thankful that this bijou dynamo of a pianist did no such thing, and he remains as fresh and surprising as ever, despite being three-quarters of a century old. After an introduction by The Independent's own Miles Kington, Tracey began with a solo rendition of "What's New". This beautiful ballad of what-might-have-been was given typically robust treatment. Its inner delicacy was still there, but the melody was manhandled like a gentle giant playing with a china doll, inevitably chipping it on the way. This is the key to Tracey's style. It's muscular and percussive, obviously influenced by Monk, although dissonant clunks are mixed with velvet-lined harmonies. When he thumps down an open fifth in the left hand he issues a challenge, and the jut of the Tracey profile tells you that it's not one to be taken up lightly. The hair may be greyer, the jowls fleshier, but this nose and chin combination brooks no argument.

It's this aggression and determination that gives his playing such an edge. A tune like "It Don't Mean a Thing" is so familiar that it's difficult to know what to do with it. Treat it roughly, was the answer from Tracey, joined by his son Clark on drums and Andy Cleyndert on bass. Further musicians took the stage as the evening progressed, rising to an octet for the closing tune of the first half, "The Cuban Connection", an exuberant, flashy, you're-gonna-feel-a-million-dollars kind of arrange- ment. All were counted in by Tracey in his idiosyncratic manner – "Ah, eeh, ah eeh oo err."

In the second half, the full complement of 11 musicians took to the stage for a set of Clark Tracey originals that were followed by "Continental Drift", a new suite by Tracey père et fils. Several doubled on different instruments – trumpet and flugelhorn, baritone sax and bass clarinet, for instance – anda remarkable range of colour was produced from what was, in effect, a smallish big band. Andy Panayi's flute whistled through the treetops in an Animal Magic-meets-jazz number about South American wildlife, while Jay Craig plumbed the gross depths of his baritone sax with a series of basso profundo flatuses.

The massed ranks of horns steamed through the ensemble sections like a swaggering juggernaut. This was masculine music, the blast of which would flatten more sensitive flowers. Such was the quality of the soloists, in particular Peter King on alto and the ever-excellent Guy Barker on trumpet, that the birthday boy was almost overshadowed in this half. But his originals reminded us just what a fine composer he is too, managing the trick of providing the unexpected without alienating the ear.

Sonny Rollins once asked of Tracey: "Does anybody here know how good he really is?" If anyone doesn't by now, they sure as hell should. This septuagenarian is still producing music to quicken the heart and stir the loins.