CLEARWATER -- Creative music, at its best, has the power of transporting listeners, perhaps to another place or another time or simply an alternate frame of mind. That’s precisely what happened when critically adored trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas brought his Charms of the Night Sky quartet to Club More on Tuesday night.

The intimate club, its 220 or so patrons mostly paying attention to the proceedings while seated at tables, booths and along the bar, suddenly felt like a weatherbeaten town square somewhere in Italy, Spain or France. Strains of European folk melodies were intertwined with tango and klezmer rhythms, freeflying jazz improvisations, classical and pop references, and homemade sound effects. Douglas, violinist Mark Feldman, accordion player Guy Klucevsek and bassist Greg Cohen, arranged in a semi-circle on the stage, might have been playing on a cobblestone street, in an open-air festival concert.

Douglas, a New Yorker, does have a reliable following in Europe. And his Clearwater show, the group’s only Florida appearance, afforded area new-music fans a rare opportunity to hear a new-music performance of the highest caliber.

Charms of the Night Sky, following an impressive, invigorating opening set by local avant-jazz favorites SHIM, emphasized music from last year’s “A Thousand Evenings,” the quartet’s second album. “Variety,” a solo piece for Klucevsek, had the accordionist alternating between menacing chord splashes and lilting themes. “A little accordion jazz,” Douglas noted, jokingly, afterward. “Thanks for missing Ken Burns (that night’s episode of the PBS series). Now we’re going to do some serious music.”

Next up, of course, was the most humorous composition of the evening, a piece written for dance choreographer Trish Brown and filled with sundry sonic goofs: The trumpeter played out of the side of his mouth, creating odd textures, while Feldman imitated the sound of a creaking door, and all four musicians joined together in a choreographed fit of coughing.

“The Branches,” an exquisite two-part suite dedicated to Yiddish-American clarinetist Dave Tarras, credited with creating klezmer music in the ‘20s and ‘30s, began slow and mournful before shifting into an uptempo start-and-stop melody. “On Our Way Home,” bouncy enough to prompt dancing (it didn’t), drew its considerable tension from a middle section anchored to an extended, minor-toned riff.

Those looking for something familiar to latch on to found some degree of satisfaction with “Goldfinger,” a tune also covered by fellow Downtown-scene trumpeter Stephen Bernstein. Douglas began his version unaccompanied, popping out a marching-band charge, the sound of a tugboat horn and a nice approximation of a sizzling hi-hat before making a quick allusion to television’s “The Odd Couple.” His reading of the James Bond theme sounded less 007, and more Fellini.