AL WOOD, one of the most remarkable stars of the local jazz scene, is that great rarity, a multi-instrumentalist.

If it has a mouthpiece or a reed, Al can produce sublime music on it, often switching effortlessly between trumpet, saxophone and clarinet on the same gig. Not long ago, Al was voted soloist of the year and was showcased on a Radio 2 broadcast with the BBC Big Band.

Catch some of the Al Wood magic tonight, as he guests with Some Like It Hot, at the Victoria Vaults, Nunnery Lane, York.

Frank Brooker is another local treasure and one of the best-loved saxophonists around. Frank will be on full song at Jazz at the Crown, Boston Spa, with the Dave Skinner Trio tomorrow night. Details from 01937 842544.

Musicians get used to hearing the tongue-in-cheek put-down "don't give up the day job," but the Modest Jazz Quartet effortlessly makes the musical grade. The group members fill their idle hours outside of music as an architect (guitarist Dave Strickland), an artist (saxophonist Harold Gosney) and a healthy communist, sorry, Health Economist (keyboard player Paul Kind). The identity of the bass player has not been revealed so far.

Some say he is the legendary joiner, Arch Stanton, but you can find out for yourself on Sunday at 8pm, when the band plays at the Three-Legged Mare, High Petergate.

Over the years, the Modest Jazz Quartet has occasionally tinkered with different names. "Past examples have included the Courtney Pine Discount Warehouse and the Thelonius Monkgate Quartet," said Paul Kind. "The Wonky Donkey is our occasional venue and a natural home for our sort of music, where West Coast Cool meets North Sea Cold."

If the Wonky Donkey is too crowded, scoot down Petergate, turn left and climb the wonky staircase of the Black Swan, Peasholme Green to check on this week's new faces who are joining the resident band for the Sunday night jam session.

Dave Douglas was voted No.1 Trumpet and No.1 Composer in the Downbeat critic's poll 2001 and 2002 and he is headlining many of the major jazz festivals in Britain.

Those clever coves at Leeds Jazz have pulled off a coup by grabbing his septet for the Wardrobe, just by the West Yorkshire Playhouse, on Wednesday. Details from 0113 245 5570/0113 269 4077.

Jimmy Giuffre was always an innovative player and composer and his wide interest is characterized by two of his landmark achievements, both perennial jazz favourites. Four Brothers was a bustling swinger arranged for Woody Herman's Band in the 1940s, while The Train And The River was a cool, languid lope for his Trio of the 1950s.

A new CD, Night Dance (Choice/Candid), is a reissue of a Giuffre Trio recorded in 1971. Guiffre plays flute, clarinet and tenor saxophone, together with Kiyoshi Tokunaga (bass) and Randy Kaye (percussion) in a challenging, but rewarding recital.

Much of the music is in Train and River mode, meditative, with echoes of folk themes and the experience is like eavesdropping on a hushed, three-way conversation in a library. On The Bird and Phoenix, Giuffre achieves an impressionistic, plaintive tone on flute.

He is at his most muscular on tenor saxophone on such tracks as Feast Dance, although his clarinet tone also spills over into a full-throated timbre. Eternal Chant has a repetitive tenor saxophone phrase typical of many of the tracks and Giuffre shares the limelight with the other two, tossing the solos between them.

The controlled virtuosity of Night Dance demands close listening to appreciate how much Giuffre's pioneering has broadened aspects of the jazz idiom over the years and how easily he moves the group from folksy pastoral to heated declamatory passages.

Updated: 10:59 Friday, May 02, 2003