Don�t be surprised if a series of tune titles bearing the words dusk, moon and Loch Indaal enters the jazz canon in the coming months.

Don't be surprised if a series of tune titles bearing the words dusk, moon and Loch Indaal enters the jazz canon in the coming months. The scene over Islay's central waterway on Friday evening was a gift to jazz musicians, who are more naturally adept at stringing notes together than naming the results, especially when facing a deadline, hence the event's opening attractions, trumpeter Colin Steele and pianist David Milligan, turning up with a new composition apiece both entitled, for now, Specially Written for Islay Jazz Festival.

Such synchronicity extended to the duo's playing as the understanding they have developed in masterminding Steele's award-winning quintet flowed through duets by turns lyrical, mischievous, mournful and buoyant, with Milligan presumably finding deeply rhythmical with Port Mor providing a fabulous natural backdrop.

Steele and Milligan are old friends of this most sociable of jazz festivals, but elsewhere new associations were being forged onstage and new faces greeted by the audience.

Connecticut-born tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene impressed on his first visit, fronting a quintet with the ever-creative trumpeter Ryan Quigley in which Greene's muscular tone, cool, logical solo building and original compositions exuded a genial authority.

Also new to Islay, and to Scotland, the Rosetta Trio of New York brought both urban hustle and a sense of travelling towards big-skied horizons reminiscent of Pat Metheny as Liberty Ellman and Jamie Fox's nimbly contrasting guitar styles interlocked with bassist and composer Stephan Crump's rugged presence.

Another bassist, Mario Caribe, marshalled quite a cast in celebrating his own 10th Islay Jazz Festival, with his nonet, Mists of Bunnahabhain, unhelpfully accompanied by weather at the distillery of the same name, which was more Mediterranean than Hebridean but bodes well for his Scottish National Jazz Orchestra commission in November.

Of all the new partnerships, however, saxophonist Tommy Smith's meeting with Swedish pianist Jakob Karlson surely exceeded all expectation. Almost orchestral in its dynamic range and yet at the same time intimate and conversational, this was music that drew on blues, gospel, folk, European impressionism and classic American jazz in creating a huge melodic, rhythmical, emotional impact, which was somehow presented with unassuming bonhomie.

Typical Islay, really, but a classic likely to be recalled with awe down the festival's next decade.