Edgefest, the Kerrytown Concert House’s annual exploration of creative improvised music, kicked off Wednesday with two acts that began to show the breadth and range of what the four-day festival holds in store.

That is to say that it combined blended straight improvisational music with composed scores in ways that spanned the spectrum from arrhythmic explorations to restrained explorations to warm, comforting readings of composed music.

Sometimes all within the same piece.

But first, lest we scare anyone away, Edgefest didn’t make it to its 14th year by bring squawky, atonal musical gibberish to Kerrytown. Quite the contrary: Edgefest celebrates vanguard musicians playing exploratory, largely improvisational music that pushes the edges of the mainstream, while still offering plenty to even the most casual music lover.

On Wednesday, pianist Angelica Sanchez and cornetist Rob Mazurek teamed up for a first-ever collaboration that blended the pair’s individual strengths into something perhaps greater than the sum of its parts.

“We’ve never played together before,” Sanchez said, following the pair’s 45-minute set that found Mazurek improvising over what appeared to be Sanchez’s mostly composed set pieces. “But we’ve always wanted to.”

It was easy to see that the pair enjoyed riffing off one another, Mazurek’s breathy, mostly muted horn providing an off-kilter yin to Sanchez’s yang.

And just when the pair’s explorations seemed to wear down, they found another direction, particularly when Mazurek started blowing into a microphone set to a slight delay, while Sanchez muted her notes with one hand inside the piano, while the other hand played stabbing, percussive power chords.

As if to prove their music was rooted in jazz tradition, Sanchez and Mazurek wound down their set with a duet that could have found its way onto Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain,” each playing off one another along a gentle, lilting melody.

Following a short, post-intermission improv set by Mazurek and trumpeter Nate Wooley, which was pleasant if unremarkable, Ann Arbor native Matt Bauder led his quintet through a set of his own remarkable compositions that simultaneously looked back at jazz’s heritage while pointing the way forward.

Bauder is a dual threat as both a gifted composer and an enormously talented reedman. On Wedneday he showed incredible chops, at times channeling John Coltrane with his soaring tenor saxophone solos, while recalling Dixieland and swing with his clarinet playing.

But Bauder’s set was all about the ensemble — and he found plenty of space for solos from each member of his fine band, which, in addition to Sanchez and Wooley, featured bassist Jason Ajemian and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Together, the quintet is comprised of some of the finest young players in jazz and it’s almost frightening to think what this quintet might sound like in 10 years, after its members have grown into their talents.

As it is, the band is already very, very good, recalling at times Carla Bley's early bands, known for melding the avant garde with jazz tradition.

Ajemian turned in the evening’s finest individual moment with a solo that perfectly balanced rhythm, melody and harmonics, while Sanchez proved an adept ensemble player, offering just the right amount of color and rhythmic persistence as a foil for Fujiwara.

Will Stewart is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com.

Edgefest continues through Saturday in various locations around Kerrytown.