If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And thankfully neither Andy Sheppard nor Dave Holland did.

In separate gigs around ten years ago, both brought their new sound to Brighton – Sheppard’s a sweetly melodic English take on world jazz and Holland’s a roof-raising big band post-bop.

A decade later in a brilliant double-header Sheppard charmed the birds from the trees and Holland raised the roof at the Dome.

Sheppard’s style hasn’t changed but his band now includes the great Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, whose folk-inflected palette was a perfect fit with this music. Guitarist John Parricelli has a broader range these days, sounding sunnily Latin on acoustic, almost rocky on electric and blending well with the icier sound of Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset.

In his second number Sheppard evoked the emotion of coming home after a long, arduous time away, but Holland’s quintet, the core of that decade-old big band, had the blood-pulsing feel of setting out on the journey.

This edgier, jazz-mixed-with-nothing hard stuff was driven by the virtuosic Chris Potter on saxes and it got us mighty high mighty quickly. Potter and Robin Eubanks on trombone weaving in and out of each other’s lines was a thing to hear and behold. Close your eyes and you’d have sworn this was a single musician playing a new instrument called a saxbone. Or tromphone, perhaps.

These guys were moving, exciting and tighter than any improvising band has the right to be. Oh, and as fresh as if that big band gig had been yesterday.