Weeks after spotting the sign in Ronnie Leckie�s shop window that offers a phone number should anyone require a painting in an emergency, Dave Milligan is still puzzling over just what kind of emergency this might be. No matter.

Star rating ****
Weeks after spotting the sign in Ronnie Leckie's shop window that offers a phone number should anyone require a painting in an emergency, Dave Milligan is still puzzling over just what kind of emergency this might be. No matter.

This, along with other idiosyncrasies found along Tobermory's Main Street, has already justified the pianist's trio's visit to Mull and its arts centre, An Tobar's invitation to write, perform and record music inspired by the town's shops.

The Tobermory connection gives each piece its particular character: we hear, for example, from the proprietor before Tackle & Books slips from tidy melody to going-for-it swing. But the point about this music is its universality. This is high-quality jazz piano trio music, whatever its derivation.

It's appropriate, too, that all three musicians have contributed compositions because this has always been a group whose sound and music have been shaped jointly by the players - Milligan and the two Toms, Mr Bass-Lyne and Professor Bangcraft - who create it. The components fit perfectly together and when the audience is enlisted to chant "Brown's Hardware Store" on funky cue, it's as if that arch soul-band architect, James Brown, has returned with a jazz trio.

If anything, the mixing of in-store soundbites and creative, melodic compositions works better onstage than on the CD, Shops. The tunes are warm, with a feeling of well-being similar to that achieved by Pat Metheny's band at its best, and the playing is crisp, tight, physical and often light-hearted, no more so than on the gorgeous non-CD track Comfort Zone, with its drum solo that's part benign hooliganism, part genius, part Sooty & Sweep Show and wholly a highlight.