Dizzy Gillespie once said he and Charlie Parker "shared the same heartbeat". These two contemporary US artists teamed up more recently and are 17 years apart - pianist Corea is 66, banjo virtuoso Fleck a youthful 49 - yet they share a extraordinary split-second empathy, not only when performing their super-precise duets but also while soloing, something both do with the creative flame of major jazz improvisers.

Corea is noted for the utterly secure rhythmic pulse behind his work, and Fleck, using what looked like a standard four-string-plus-drone parlour banjo, matched him note for note at every tempo and tricky harmonic turn. Waltz for Abby, a nimble 6/8 number from their current album, The Enchantment, found him demonstrating dazzling new uses for The Claw, a Tennessee triplet pattern for thumb and two fingers.

On the last leg of a long European tour that had included Barcelona, Moscow and Zagreb, there was a special zest about their work. "Lemme show you what Bela has taught me about Bluegrass piano," quipped Corea before playing a challenging Fleck line, The Mountain. Mixing standards (a brisk samba version of Brazil) with brilliant originals (Song to the Pharaoh Kings), they produced one bravura duet after another, and time flew.

"Anybody heard of Henri Dutilleux?" Chick finally enquired. "French composer, lives in Paris. Now about 90. Wrote this lullaby in the Forties." An ingenious line followed, expressively sight-read, with no solos. "Pretty, huh? There are five more preludes. We're gonna work on it."

Two encores followed, the last one an exultant version of Armando's Rhumba, one of those catchy themes from the Return to Forever days. Corea is such a complete jazz pianist that we sometimes forget he composed all these Latin-jazz classics. Long may he and Bela the banjo maestro thrive.

• Festival until Sunday (www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk).