Descending into a candlelit basement off one of Prague's cobblestone streets, you can hear Marcel Bárta's bass clarinet and Oskar Török's trumpet weaving like falling autumn leaves. In the corner of the room, Rastislav Uhrík's stand-up bass thumps to propel the collective melody while drummer Daniel Šoltis uses bare hands, mallets, sticks and brushes to coax music from his kit. At the bench of a baby grand, pianist Vojtěch Procházka expertly fills out the sound with colors, using impressionistic chords.

In what Vertigo Quintet drummer and founder Šoltis calls "small, off-the-beaten-path places," a new generation of Czech and Slovak musicians are updating the local jazz game. Be-bop, cool jazz and other fashionable buzz words are being transcended by this new generation's musical statements. They perform an array of original works, spiced occasionally by a few choice new-millennia jazz compositions.

Another thing that adds to the excitement of their sound is what they have been listening to for the past 10 years. "There is a lot of space for individual and group improvisation, but the form, harmony and melody is thought out," says Procházka. It is in their "thought-out" approach that Vertigo combines diverse influences from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Radiohead, Debussy and Scriabin.

Debussy's extended effective compositional techniques are well-known, as is his early embrace of jazz, which created a body of work frequently referenced by both classical and jazz musicians. His influence is perceptible in lending Vertigo's music what Procházka describes as "the sonority and use of colors, and [Debussy's] thinking in terms of space." As for Scriabin, Procházka says his "use of harmony, especially how he builds chords" is what enables Vertigo to get beyond the obvious. In the end, it all provides a unique basis for what Šoltis calls "written forms that open our compositions to improvisation."

While Ornette Coleman is cited as one of group's modern influences, Vertigo is not prone to the endless improvised cacophony sometimes misinterpreted as Coleman's signature. On the contrary: With Vertigo, the intensity serves an elevated beauty that floats original harmony and melody on a listenable surface.

This edge puts Vertigo pleasurably outside of what is sometimes called "chamber jazz."