There's only a slim chance of catching more live jazz in 2020, perhaps a gig or two before Silvester if Lockdown in England ends when it is supposed to. However, these were our top 4 gigs in what was otherwise a fairly impossible year to experience live music. All four selected represent top quality musicianship and the no. 1 choice was one of the best gigs witnessed by marlbank in many years.

4/ James Copus quartet and Joe Downard sextet, Jazz Cafe, London September

Picture the scene, around the corner from the Jazz Cafe a hare-eyed protester with a megaphone ranting anti-Lockdown conspiracy theories; a busy line of traffic crawling along Parkway closer to the Camden Town venue and then into the Jazz Cafe itself, newly reopened after Lockdown with an all sit-down socially distanced gig and the first live jazz marlbank has experienced since the pandemic hit us disastrously in March.

A double album launch led by two Ubuntu label artists bassist Joe Downard and trumpeter James Copus marked the occasion, both bands welcomed to the stage by the voice of label head honcho Martin Hummel on the PA. Downard opened first with a sextet bristling with keyboards (two players playing two instruments each) playing from Seven Japanese Tales with Copus who would follow with his quartet here taking part in Downard's band in the front-line alternating flugel and trumpet with saxophonist Alex Hitchcock, the latter excelling later the more Michael Brecker-like he became. As for Downard he has a lovely tone and a beefy Jasper Høiby-like sense of attack.

Copus' quartet itself had more firepower and featured the great ex-Acoustic Ladyland keyboardist Tom Cawley who was superb throughout, his dirty electric keyboard attack tapping into a 1970s jazz-rock style that a young Chick Corea would have recognised. James Maddren on drums isn't on Copus' album Dusk and had a part to read from his stand but was powerful and quite loud (I always think of Jeff Ballard when I hear Maddren play) while as for Copus it was uncanny that he came over like Ian Carr who was one of the first English players with his band Nucleus to channel jazz-rock when the style was new and explored further by Miles Davis on, among other albums, Bitches Brew. Copus is a brilliant young player and live he had that tenderness and contrasting power that is stimulating to witness. He unveiled a new tune at the beginning before playing from the album. I liked 'Yearning' most towards the end. Live jazz again in Camden town? Bring it on.

3/ Brian Kennedy, Westville, Enniskillen January

Wearing a t-shirt that amusingly read ‘Fair Play to Me’ on the front and ‘Don’t Look Back’ on the other side, the soulful Brian Kennedy was back in the Westville, in the ballroom-like function room upstairs, playing a supper club set. Just over a month ago he was playing Carnegie Hall.

A former backing singer for Van Morrison, Irish Eurovision entrant and in popular consciousness perhaps most renowned for singing ‘You Raise Me Up’ at the funeral of George Best in 2005, Kennedy has fought cancer in recent years and now recovered was looking more than well, quipping later when he wiped a towel across his face ‘'no fake tan – tonight, anyway’'. Guitarist Stuart Gray and some fed-in backing tracks were his band for the evening, Kennedy himself picked up a guitar later often resting it on his hip and strumming it Spanish style. The Van section kicked off by ‘Days Like This’, Kennedy namechecking Georgie Fame as the organ backing track soared, and better still ‘Crazy Love’ came fairly early on. Kennedy throughout chatted readily to the audience and inquired what their point of entry was in terms of discovering his own music. He said that he found Van a very ''positive person'' and he would be appearing with him later in the year at a cancer fundraiser in Belfast for which Van has donated a signed guitar.

The west Belfast man was chatty and laidback as he complimented waiters who brought him water or hovered in front of him attending to diners. ''I was a terrible waiter. I lasted a day,'' he said self-deprecatingly. He invited the audience to ''ask me anything, doesn’t have to be requests'' and sure enough the punters trooped up – mostly with requests. It turned out three or four people were celebrating birthdays. It was that kind of good natured evening. ‘You Raise Me Up' right at the end found the guitarist swelling to the theme in his big moment that featured his solo overlaid by the invisible backing uilleann pipes accompaniment. The encores had quite a few dancers up. The sunny ‘Put the Message in the Box’ was an upbeat way to draw the evening to a likeable close. A pick overall in a confident set was the lilting 'By the Mountain Road'.

2/ Xhosa Cole quartet, Vortex, London March

Themed around the Larry Young Blue Note album Unity released in 1966 delivered in the second set of the concert tenor saxophonist Xhosa Cole cut a tall, dapper presence dressed in a striped blazer, tie, and flannels, his style as classic as his look, in the front line jousting throughout with the pure toned trumpet star and bandleader in his own right Jay Phelps a little less formally dressed but stylish as ever. Jim Bashford was on drums playing the Elvin Jones role while Noah Stoneman on Nord C3 organ if you like was the Larry Young figure and rose to the challenge. Cole of course was our Joe Henderson and Jay, Woody Shaw. But this was not impersonation and each player has his own style and brought personality to a sound for it to become more than the sum of its parts. Stoneman has a lot of potential and reminded me of Kit Downes in his early days (who Jay recorded with in Empirical on their first award-winning album in the early days).

The first set begun by a boogaloo in the Lee Morgan mould, in terms of highlights of this part of the concert the real moment was within a tribute to the late great McCoy Tyner with 'Contemplation' beautifully rendered by Xhosa up high in the register on that achingly beautiful tune as the melody floats down the scale so tenderly.

By contrast trad jazz got a look in with the romping 'John Brown's Body' something I haven't heard live in years.

Cole has a fantastic technique and his solos have an intensity to them even when his timbre is light and airy there is strength and stamina to his method and plenty of detours ahead in the improvising journey.

Hot on the stage and a warm-ish night the relaxed but attentive audience responded well to the Young material later, the tunes played in the order they occur on the album.

The audience helped Xhosa gloss 'Zoltan' named for the Hungarian composer Kodály as he chatted engagingly explaining the tunes, and we all warmed to the lovely 'The Moontrane' with 'Monk's Dream' and 'If' coming in between. 'Softly as in a Morning Sunrise' was a warm treatment, while earlier the band displayed their facility in the tricky time shifts on the Monk. (Even more so on the very hairy 'Played Twice' in the first set.)

An excellent band: I'll be looking to hear Cole as soon as reasonably possible. His rapport with Phelps especially the way they can riff contrapuntally so deftly as Stoneman soloed was great to witness and added to the lush voicings ornamenting the organ. The level of syncopation throughout especially on the Monk material and then taking the tempo up on the super busy 'Beyond All Limits' was outstanding.

1/ Gig of the year Byron Wallen 4 Corners, Pizza Express, Holborn, London February

In quite a scramble because Soho was evacuated and police indicated a suspected World War two ordnance discovered at a building site near Dean Street where cordons were put in place Byron Wallen's show was moved from Soho a few miles across central London to the club's sister venue in the spacious basement club of the chain's Holborn restaurant.

The German-Italian-Hungarian quartet Web Web who were to play the whole evening ending up instead doing an opening support slot, Hungarian great Tony Lakatos on tenor saxophone and flute illuminating what was otherwise a fairly pedestrian Rhodes-soaked band sound. But fair play to the band for truncating their plans for the evening as they launched their latest record on the Compost label.

While the less than compelling support was not an ideal start to the evening the plus point was that Byron Wallen was able to make use of the Rhodes electric piano later. If it had been, as planned, Dean Street, the choice would have been the house Steinway. It was good to hear his arranger's touch when he sat down a few times to play the Rhodes ever so quietly and wisely given the cavalier way Web Web's pianist Roberto Di Gioia had tastelessly toyed with the volume dial.

4 Corners, Byron told the audience, has been playing together for three or four years and the place was packed with a lot of musicians in the audience as well as punters in what because of circumstances was a combined two-band audience. I chatted briefly to sax icon Jean Toussaint and Soul Immigrants leader guitarist Emrys Baird for instance in the break between sets among a range of luminaries present.

Rod Youngs on drums and Rob Luft on electric guitar toured a good deal last year with Dave O'Higgins and Scott Flanigan and have excellent rapport, Youngs powerful on the off beats and his bebop mastery of the bass drum certainly came into its own on the more syncopated sections for extra propulsion that Byron certainly responded to later particularly when he picked up blocks.

The tunes included the fine 'Silent Praise' and a tribute to Harry Beckett (1935-2010) called 'Pink' named after the door on an unnamed house on the Stoke Newington street that the great trumpeter advised Byron to look for when visiting him years ago. Byron said only a fellow trumpeter knows the challenge in keeping your playing chops in shape as Harry did.

The new Portrait material from Byron's first album in more than a decade had plenty of oomph and fizzed with ideas.

I liked the music he has written for Conundrum by Paul Anthony Morris to be staged at the Young Vic in May and whose director was present and the 'Womb to Tomb' passages were stuffed full of interest, the musical language moving beyond the Western conventions of rhythm and modality to evoke the spirit world. Byron's spoken word monologue was excellent, he has a very appealing voice and in his chats to the audience was warm and engaged talking about notions of home and how people from all over the world have contributed so much to life in Britain.

Luft played very well indeed, his tapping touch and measured use of reverb was visceral and highly direct. He managed to allow individuality to break out as well as knit into the rhythm section depending on the nature of the course of the tune. Paul Michael on bass guitar, sometimes sitting to play sometimes standing tall, was a reliable rock among the polyrhythmic undergrowth.

Byron's conch shell feature using pedal delay and capture that allowed him to use high pitched shells to be accompanied by the lower ranged sounds that he had moments earlier created really worked and integrated neatly when the solo flowed into band collective improvisation that then painted an expansive canvas.

The new Portrait material leans towards a neighbourhood story of Woolwich where Byron, who grew up in Tottenham, has lived for many years.

'Anthem' dedicated to Abram Wilson who left us too soon and who Byron stepped in for when the New Orleanian fell ill, was the most complete demonstration of Byron's mastery of mood and sectional shifts in the writing. The piece had an elaborate construction that unfolded and blossomed beautifully, Luft here was subtle and ingenious in the way he teased out the softer overtones he somehow found to nurture.

To sum up: the band played in a joyful engaged matter where improvisation had its place but composition did too, the tunes seemed bigger than themselves, and you could get the feeling that this was mature and original in an all-round sense. Byron's skill at projecting big bold fluttery solos and just as easily vulnerability and poeticism in his tonal contouring was a great privilege to witness. One of the best live gigs I've attended in simply years.

Byron Wallen, top. Photo: marlbank