JFJO shows seem to toggle between sprightliness, mischief and fierce grooving, and when the band transcends itself you get all three. At the Regattabar the trio seemed most interested in setting moods within individual selections—probably for Raymer’s benefit, or just because they felt like it—than in developing an overarching theme or a set-long expression.

Duke Ellington’s “Oklahoma Stomp” was first, drunk on its own funk with Haas, Mathis and Raymer bouncing beatific glances and fleet-fingered passages off each other like hurled rations in a friendly, brotherly food fight. A new Haas original, “Old Love New Love,” was the opposite end (three selections later, after workouts on Brubeck and Monk): ethereal, moody and hinging on electric piano syncopations.

The evening also offered an inspired pairing of the Fred with Club d’Elf, Boston’s long-running fusion collective anchored by bassist and all-around class act Mike Rivard. Club d’Elf is an essential Boston-area stop for lovers of heady music: sometimes the tightest jazz-funk ensemble around, sometimes a night of sprawl and soundscape, often both, and more.

The more members onstage in D’Elf, the more cluttered the progressions. But this night’s 75-minute set of concoctions found Rivard with many of the players with whom he seems to have the most comfortable rapport, including Rivard’s regular skinsman Dean Johnson, guitarist Duke Levine and saxophonist Tom Hall, who proved spooky and effervescent at one moment, skronking the next. As the colors and shading grew deeper and darker, Mission of Burma punk legend Roger Miller (on keyboards) and estimable turntablist Mister Rourke became as crucial to the groupthink as anyone else. Instead of jumbled masses of competing ideas and cacophony, Rivard (who finally picked up his resting sintir for the last song) and his cohorts create something utterly transporting. Adjectives abound, and my favorite is protean.

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