Fast as thought: Pat Metheny will be at the Barbican this year. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe.
Was it a 1940s Harlem ballroom or the cutting edge of contemporary jazz... or both? Last Friday, the great American saxophonist Joe Lovano launched the 2007 season of Barbican Jazz with a rousing show.
Next week, McCoy Tyner - certified living legend - will carry the torch with a celebration of the Impulse Records jazz label.
For the next five months, in fact, Barbican Jazz, presented in collaboration with London promoters Serious Productions, will take over the capital. The series has come from nowhere in under a decade and turned into one of the most prestigious jazz events on the international circuit.
Back in the mid-90s, almost the only music you could hear in the Barbican was traditional classical repertoire played by the resident London Symphony Orchestra. Then the venue began to draw in world music, folk and jazz. At the turn of the millennium, Barbican programmer Sarah Wadham told me: "Something's happening to the audiences. There doesn't have to be one audience for this, another for that. My friends don't hear music that way any more, and neither do I."
Barbican Jazz gigs, which are almost always packed, enthusiastic and multigenerational, cater for an audience discovering that jazz - always a process more than a genre - is tightly entwined with more contemporary music styles than they might have suspected.
Tyner's concert on February 26, for example, revisits the Impulse Records label... but an American band is augmented by two London musicians - saxophonist Jason Yarde and trumpeter Byron Wallen - who are familiar with hip hop, contemporary classical, world music, rap and more.
Swedish fusion trio EST (March 21) sometimes sound like a traditional unplugged acoustic-piano band, sometimes like a rock group, with light shows and stage smoke to match - and their music is full of catchy hooks, so the improv-uninitiated can get a handle on where they are.
Veteran American saxist Charles Lloyd (May 5) stretches the envelope of familiar jazz material with pianist Jason Moran, a young virtuoso who will remould street rhythms, free jazz, even the traditional African ring-shout.
Vocalist Bobby McFerrin (May 20, 21) is like a human sampling machine, who can mimic bass guitars, passing motorbikes and church congregations, while singer-pianist Alain Toussaint (June 4) is more of a sampling source, much appropriated by hip hop artists.
Two duos feature American composer-improvisers who conduct dazzling, spontaneous dialogues as fast they can think: pianist Chick Corea and vibraphonist Gary Burton (June 30), and guitarist Pat Metheny with pianist Brad Mehldau (June 1, 2) are the classiest exponents of this intimate art.
A much louder guitar sound comes from John Scofield (July 15) in company with funky, jazz and R&B jam band Medeski, Martin and Wood. And the season winds up with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis's Lincoln Center Orchestra and a Ghanaian drum ensemble on July 23.
All of them have the hallmarks of memorable shows and picking out a few is unfair on the series - athough McCoy Tyner, Bobby McFerrin and John Scofield might give you a revealing sweep across contemporary jazz. For a taster, try these three connections...
· Launch Bobby McFerrin's radio player and listen to songs across his long career as an innovator.
· Download John Scofield's 1998 collaboration with Medeski, Martin and Wood on A Go Go
· Download McCoy Tyner's Manalyuca
