Les Doigts de l'Homme, Bosco Theater; Carl Majeau, The Lot Rob Adams *** Les Doigts de l'Homme may have arrived at the Bosco Theater a week too early. With their unashamed showmanship, irreverent humour and audience participation, this French quartet is the kind of act that would have them queuing all round George Square during the Fringe.

Les Doigts de l'Homme, Bosco Theater; Carl Majeau,
The Lot
Rob Adams
***

Les Doigts de l'Homme may have arrived at the Bosco Theater a week too early. With their unashamed showmanship, irreverent humour and audience participation, this French quartet is the kind of act that would have them queuing all round George Square during the Fringe.

They can play a bit, too, with all three guitarists taking solos and highlighting the contrast between the hectic, rough-hewn mobility of their main spokesman, Olivier Kikteff, and his colleagues' silkier but no less mobile styles.

Kikteff played the oud with a notably percussive dig on a number that also featured a cajon (a Latin American percussion box), and the group's theatricality truly came to the fore during bassist Tanguy Blum's turn in the spotlight, when Kikteff's feigned banjo ineptness magically morphed into an Eastern European dance tune that Shergar and Red Rum combined couldn't have caught.

We'll doubtless be hearing more from them - and from tenor saxophonist Carl Majeau, who, at 17, appears to have enjoyed several previous lives in different jazz ages. Working with an equally youthful trio, which included current Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year Andrew Robb on bass, the Seattle-born Majeau traced the history of his instrument's great exponents from Lester Young through to Wayne Shorter.

Rather than slavishly imitating, Majeau captured aspects of the greats' styles - Stan Getz's melodic gracefulness; Ben Webster's poignancy - in interpretations of associated tunes that were all connected by his ability to build solos logically and unhurriedly, even at racing Coltrane tempo.