First of all, apologies for the fact that this is only half a review – however it was so very nearly no review at all. It was at 7pm yesterday evening when, idly checking updates from Tour De France riders on Twitter, I happened upon the following simple, unadorned tweet: “Marshall Allen tonight at Café Oto”. That was posted by the Room 40 label, not by Lance Armstrong or Carlos Sastre, although that would have been pretty amazing; albeit less amazing than the Sun Ra Arkestra entering Le Tour. Marshall Allen? I thought. At Oto? Hang on, I’m pretty bloody sure I have tickets for this! And so I did, so tossed my half-finished game of Twitter to the floor and travelled the spaceways (aka Victoria line and the number 30 bus) to Dalston.

You see, Café Oto isn’t just a venue for hip young things like me and Room40 and Carlos Sastre, it will even find space for an 85 year old legend of the avant-garde. Although if ever there was a hip young 85 year old it is Lance Armstrong, er I mean Marshall Allen, bounding onto the stage like the wily fox which is agile enough to catch and kill the spring chicken. Tonight’s spring chicken was remarkable 25 year-old Arkestra inductee Farid Barron on piano, who was joined on drums by the brave British drummer Paul Hession. I say brave, as any Marshall Allen gig, Arkestra or not, will involve a fair amount of direction from the man himself. Especially brave as, John Edwards only being there for the second set (no doubt too busy checking Twitter for news as to how the Colombia team’s legs were feeling after their earlier breakaway stage win*) he was left isolated on his own to play with these two who seemingly knew each other’s games inside out.

So, it wasn’t exactly an ensemble improvised performance – Allen is more used to his role as leader, and would clearly give cues, nods, signals and even orders to the others. Barron would take these and run with them, long melodic rubato intros tying themselves into knotty Cecil Taylor-like lines or breaking them out into early-to-mid 60s Coltrane modal grooves. Hession to these ears did a very fine job, reacting at high speed in order to fit his ideas around the others, playing the Elvin Jones part when Barron was playing Tyner, and tipping over a bucketful of cymbals when Hession was thumping his piano with his elbows. To the ears of Marshall Allen, however, I got the impression he was at times an irritation, a force he could not control despite his best efforts -gesticulating and barking at Hession in a way he probably isn’t all that accustomed to.

Allen himself was in incredible voice. On alto sax he rampaged around the stage, bashing blurrily at his instrument with his right hand like was mangling the strings of a guitar, running up through the registers to finish on the highest notes, his right arm held aloft like a claw. On clarinet he was soft in tone, chirruping melodically, only occasionally letting loose an angry squawk. However it was on his Electronic Valve Instrument that he really cut loose tonight. In this small band format he was able to make much more use of it than in his big band, running it through a pedal to build up loops. He encouraged the pianist and drummer to interact with these repeated spacey whoops, which resulted in some rhythmic, electronic quasi-dance music, and then some free-white-noise freakouts which had the audience gasping in astonishment. He can’t quite do this in the Arkestra, and the spirit of gleeful abandonment was infectious.

So, where is the second half of the review? Well, they broke for a breather just after 10.30; with that promised second set still looming, and with visions of the incredible elder statesman pedalling on into the distance (well, into Tuesday, at least) I opted to drop myself from the peloton and head for home. Sod’s law dictates that that second set, featuring John Edwards on double bass, will have been mind-blowing (I’ve since heard that was indeed the case). Given his insatiable appetite for performing it is clear that the maillot a paillettes d’or will remain on the shoulders of Marshall Allen for some time to come.

*Apparently, Edwards had been playing another gig somewhere else before this one. Chapeau, John.