When some of Australia’s leading jazz musicians are in the audience, you know you are in for something special. Such was the case when the SF Jazz Collective performed for the first time in Australia in Melbourne’s Hamer Hall.

Its members are musicians at the top of their game and their performance one of dazzling technical proficiency combined with a probing jazz sensibility that seemed effortless.

SF Jazz Collective. Photo supplied

This concert was a double ‘first’ as it was also the premier of the Collective’s latest composition, a work titled Twentieth Anniversary Suite. It was written collectively to mark the upcoming anniversary of its foundation in 2004. Drummer Kendrick Scott explained members – leading jazz composers and musicians – come together around this time of year for a month to workshop material, then go on tour.

The Suite consisted on a number of different pieces played without a break. At times it was hard to tell where one ended and another began. They sat together well, however, as one epic work. Engaging melodies, rhythm variation and sudden changes of pace left plenty of room for expansive improvisations, which were shared around....