Then Roy Hargrove walked on.

The two drummers and two keyboard players hit — laying down a furious groove which immediately pulled the clapping crowd along. Rene Neufville (vocals and keyboard) kept her eye glued on Brandon Coleman, following his ever twisting and churning lead on keyboards.

The horns stepped up and had their say as Bruce Williams' alto, the baritone of Jason Marshall, and Hargrove's spikey trumpet huddled together front stage in a three-way talk. They spoke a fervent dialect known as hard bop.

But wait — the entire RH Factor band is now up and playing. It's party music.

The band stops, and turns on a dime.

Suddenly a brass-rich melody, stately and very South African, is playing and prevailing above a head-tossing grounded bass vamp. We've moved on.

We see that RH Factor is all about playing today's popular music with a jazzman's improvising mentality.

But it's not all loud and intense grooving.

There are quiet interludes where bassist Reggie Washington can clearly speak his mind, and there's open space for guitarist Todd Parsnow to bend a worrying blues into Jimi Hendrix territory — all before the music gets social again and Hargrove rushes into the group swinging, riffing his way into long held mid-tones until he's gradually swallowed up in a swarming hallucination of sound.

Stop. Silence.