At Inner West Jazz Fest, you’re a moth to the improvisational flame. You follow the music from the main hall for the first act into the side Victory Hall for the warmly-lit second act, rinse and repeat. A chance to stretch the legs, see the space and miss the dead air of a stage changeover.

The classification of ‘jazz’ casts a wide net, and co-curators Clayton Thomas and Laurence Pike make the most of its breadth. Billed as an experimental folk trio, Heaps Grass – vocalist/pianist Ebony Tait, guitarist Lachlan Mills and drummer Jack Rosenzweig – are the openers. Never loud or brash, they plumb a depth and darkness with jazz harmony and complex rhythmic approach underneath a pure, pretty voice for some really interesting tracks.

Hinano Fujisaki plays Inner West Jazz Fest. Photo © Joe Glaysher

Then, we cluster in a circle in the Victory Hall around drummer Simon Barker and saxophonist Hinano Fujisaki for Tymbal Echoes. A meditative piece, like a running river, no still water – ever-shifting rhythms, fluid long notes, raspy multiphonics.

After that, Laurence Pike’s Hallucinations hits like a train – full-speed, head on –...