Some people joke that a bass solo is a good time to go get a drink or take a smoke break. When Christian McBride is playing the bass solo, it's a time to listen, a time to learn.

On Sunday night at Jefferson Center, McBride brought Inside Straight, an ensemble of equally phenomenal musicians. It kept the crowd of 385 in rapt attention with musical depth, fierce solos and high energy.

All that, despite what could best be described as a jazz odyssey. McBride told the audience about the group's 13 flights in six days, back and forth to a single show in French Guiana before landing in Roanoke -- its luggage missing.

With only their instruments and the clothes on their backs, the band members sounded fresh and adventurous on tunes from McBride's "Kind of Brown," a new album of straight-ahead jazz. As good as that record is at capturing that more traditional style, it sounds at times a little staid. This performance was anything but. The band had big fun taking creative chances.

It started from show opener "Brother Mister," its slinky, soul-jazz melody driven by drummer Ulysses Owens's quarter-note pulse. Hampton native Steve Wilson's saxophone runs strode and glided along a skipping 16th-note path, with pianist Peter Martin underpinning it with stabbing complementary chords.

On the late Freddie Hubbard's "Theme for Kareem," McBride opened with a percussive and percolating solo before the band hit the syncopated melody. Owens closed it with an astounding break, displaying a skill set tall as the song's namesake, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- but always implying the melody.

Vibrophonist Warren Wolf, like Owens, is a young man with a huge future in jazz. His solo in the 34 time "Uncle James" was gorgeous and soulful, and he, too, seems to have automatic weapons for hands.

McBride and Martin went lush and hot on Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady," the set's only variance from the songs on "Kind of Brown." On the gospel-tinged "Used Ta Could," Inside Straight seemed to have the most fun, but that was before it lit into "Stick and Move," a warp-speed, swinging tribute to boxer Muhammad Ali. It must be said: This act floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.