The tuba is often typecast as a supporting player at the bottom of the orchestra or as oom-pah champion in all sorts of bands. But in the right hands (and embouchure), it can be an expressive and dashing solo instrument, a reality made clear on this recording of hip works from the 1970s and ’80s featuring the remarkable Aaron Tindall.

Hip shouldn’t be confused with insubstantial. The three pieces Tindall animates with finesse and virtuosity embrace an amalgam of popular styles, from swinging jazz to rock, taking tuba player and inspired colleagues through challenges of entrancing and charismatic persuasion. Tindall is the poetic protagonist in Jimmy Rowles’s The Peacocks, a ballad calling for seamless phrasing from both tubist and pianist, here the vibrant Shelly Berg. Joined in the disc’s eponymous work, Fred Tackett’s The Yellow Bird, by electric bassist Chuck Bergeron, electric guitarist Brian Russell and drummer Svet Stoyanov, the musicians savour the work’s cheeky changes of mood and rock impetuosity.

The disc’s centrepiece is a captivating account of Claude Bolling’s Suite for cello and jazz piano trio, with tuba replacing the string instrument to splendid effect. Rooted in Baroque lingo but happy to wander off into diverse jazz territories, the score was written for Yo-Yo Ma, who recorded it in 1984 with the composer-pianist and friends. Tindall plays with masterly control and character, easily traversing the part’s formidable difficulties, and he partners blissfully with the disarming trio of Berg, Bergeron and Stoyanov. So much for oom-pah underpinning!