Overall, Saturday's double-bill at Vicar Street - eagerly anticipated on the evidence of recordings - was a disappointment. Kent's set was dull. Live, her not conventionally pretty voice lacked the warmth and intimacy of her albums, and there were only her time and phrasing to impress. The support group, polished to the point of boredom, has atrophied into formula, with little evidence of the looseness and risk-taking, however minimal, that characterises jazz or its own earlier recordings; Jim Tomlinson's Getzian tenor was tonally beautiful but needed pushing to animate it, and only Dave Newton, in Oscar Peterson mode, provided rhythmic lift when he soloed on piano.

Partly, this may be down to the fact the group now has no drummer; minus one, it was also minus drive. But the fundamental impression was of a highclass, formulaic, jazzy nightclub act, rather than the real thing. Her recordings, especially the first two, are better than that. The Renee Rosnes Trio was considerably more substantial, both in jazz terms and musically. She is a technically brilliant, imaginative pianist with an orchestral approach rooted in bop. But again - possibly due to a late-afternoon arrival after lengthy travel - something was lacking in performance. Monk pieces like Hackensack and Bemsha Swing had their astringencies smoothed out, and a beautifully reharmonised Round Midnight somehow diluted the melancholy essence of the tune. Moreover, husband Billy Drummond, a fine player, seemed idiosyncratically self-contained initially, rather than fully attuned to his colleagues.

There were signs that the trio was loosening up with a swinging Summer Night, confirmed by a meaty With A Little Help From My Friends, in which they began to engage in dialogue to the level of which they are capable. A subsequent engrossing interchange on Night And Day between Drummond and bassist Scott Colley wasn't sustained. The most interesting soloist of the evening was Colley, whose ideas suggested dimensions the group as a whole failed to exploit.