Zurich is an unlikely place for an American jazz superstar to reside unless, of course, he needs to be closer to his money, which is unlikely to be a pressing issue for Billy Cobham.

Success in jazz tends to be experienced more in the warmth of an ovation than from a bank manager’s handshake but having a Swiss base does not seem to be hurting this Panamanian-born drummer’s career. Thanks to his ever-steady beat and shrewd ear for young musicians, Cobham has surrounded himself with a strong international group and continues to maintain the standards that brought him into the orbits of Horace Silver, the Brecker Brothers and Miles Davis.

In London this weekend he was in retrospective mood, enhancing the title themes of big-selling past albums (Spectrum, Crosswinds) with stylish solos from a new generation of players. Three Frenchmen, guitarist Jean-Marie Ecay, bass-guitarist Philippe “Fi-Fi” Chayeb and pianist Christophe Cravero, blended with Caribbean steel-pan virtuoso and Brazilian percussionist Marco Lobo as tightly as if all were raised in the same tropical village. Cravero was particularly valuable. Halfway through the set he produced a handsome old matt-finish violin and extracted the sweetest tone from it.

Towards the end a massive drum solo contrasted with Lobo’s delicate Brazilian percussion exotica, the squeak of the talking handdrum and the ancient bowed song of the berimbau.

Cobham’s repeated exhortations to us to buy his new album, Fruit from the Loom, were the only uncool note. Even in Zurich, apparently, belts are getting tighter.