Good to see Ronnie's respectably full last night for a hard-centred double-bill by a bright young British quintet and an iconic American drummer-bandleader whose CV includes almost every superstar (Horace Silver, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, the Brecker Brothers) on your all-time-great list.

"I first played here in 1968," confessed Billy Cobham, a jazz-rock pioneer who powered McLaughlin's earth-shaking groups and introduced lavishly expanded showkits to stadium stages.

A living legend and a remarkably athletic figure at the drums, a tennis sweatband ringing his gleaming head, he looked ageless and superfit.

Music obviously keeps him young, and world-jazz is his natural habitat. Though raised in the States, Cobham was born in Panama, is now based in Switzerland and calls his latest group Culture Mix.

Riding his tough Afro-funk or sinuous samba beats, Junior Gill's steel pans, Marco Fadola's flashy conga-drums, guitarist Jean-Marc Ecay's edgy guitar and Jukis Uotila's sparkling synthwork provided a feast of local colour. The most popular solo, though, came from Fender-bassist Mike Mondesir, a Londoner very much at home in this international field.

Empirical, a big hit at the international jazz-education conference in Toronto earlier this month, opened the show confidently.

Their themes, marked by unexpected tempo changes and ruminative near-silences, were stylish and original.

Pianist Kit Downes and drummer Shane Forbes are high-class performers, with trumpeter Jay Phelps and altoist Nathaniel Facey not far behind. All, including new bassist Tom Farmer, sounded better for gaining familiarity with such complex material. A rebooking seems certain.