Richard Galliano / Roy Haynes / Ornette Coleman, London Jazz Festival

Ornette Coleman at the Royal Festival Hall

As the London Jazz Festival moved towards its final weekend, the choice between intriguing commissions, canny double bills and leading players got ever sharper. Of 30 gigs promoted on Thursday, the three Southbank venues alone twinned veteran firebrand Archie Shepp with UK rising stars Empirical; evoked the musical legacy and political activism of Café Society, the 1940s New York jazz club; and, at the Royal Festival Hall, hosted Richard Galliano’s loving celebration of Nino Rota’s film scores with his La Strada Quintet.

The French-born Galliano is the founding father and greatest exponent of contemporary jazz accordion and he confirmed his fluency and idiomatic mastery with a short solo first set. Bittersweet Piazzola opened, frolicsome chanson and majestic Bach were in the mix, and the finale was a tour de force of imperious crescendos, whispery flutters and a final rush of air.

In lesser hands, Rota’s melange of village dance and circus oompah, street march and urban cool would be somewhat fey, but Galliano’s quintet brought out the dark undertow of Rota’s scene-setting compositions for films such as The Godfather and La Strada. Brittle-toned trumpeter Dave Douglas and sonorous soprano saxophonist John Surman blended perfectly with Galliano’s orchestral palette, and made clear that, however festive the occasion, bad things lie in wait.

On Friday, Queen Elizabeth Hall presented a double bill of modernist veterans. Drummer Roy Haynes, whose A-List credits begin with Lester Young and Charlie Parker in late 1940s New York, was supported by Peter King, who played sax at the opening of Ronnie Scott’s Gerrard Street club in 1959. King’s flowing arpeggios came with a cool tone and a hard edge – an elaborate reading of “Lush Life” was a first set highlight, while “The World of Trane”, written by rhapsodic pianist Steve Melling, referenced the Coltrane influence. A no-nonsense “Favourite Things” wrapped up a shortish set.

Haynes, born in 1925, calls his sax-fronted quartet The Fountain of Youth Band and, judging by his introductory frolics, he had just drunk copious draughts. Once seated, a first solo explored his instrument’s sonic possibilities, and showed off a lifetime’s mastery of delayed beats, fiendish cross-rhythms and melodic construction. Haynes’s ensemble playing, stripping down a complex style to its essentials, vigorously marked the key moments of Monk’s “Trinkle Tinkle”, swished sensuously on a lovely ballad medley – Jaleel Shaw’s alto a lissom and inventive delight – and propelled a long and fervent meditation on “My Heart belongs to Daddy”. A final whizz through Parker’s “Segment” confirmed the drummer’s vigour.

The festival ended on Sunday in grand style, with a 33-gig sprawl – must-sees included Hermeto Pascoal, Bill Frisell and Beyoncé’s saxophonist Tia Fuller. The coup, though, was a late-addition booking for saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s quartet at the Royal Festival Hall.

Coleman, now 81, remains committed to creative risk. His current quartet, with two basses meshing with son Denardo’s commanding drum thrash, offers no hiding place for a single lead instrument. His repertoire was defiantly broad – stubby funk and a Bach prelude, boleros and boogies at this gig – and even old favourites such as “Congeniality” and “Blues Connotation” came rearranged.

The grooves were freewheeling and mighty, but fiendish unison bursts, sudden stops and changes of direction revealed organisation within. Coleman sailed and soared, fragile at the edges but with his gospel shouts, downward cascades and extraordinary melodic invention still intact. The encore, a plangent, life-affirming “Lonely Woman”, cast a long-lasting and otherworldly spell as Coleman spun lyrical fragments over light cymbals and Tony Falanga and Al McDowell’s thrumming basses. It was a festival highlight.

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