Gary Burton/ Makoto Ozone
Pizza Express Jazz Club, London ****

For a machine capable of such a pretty shimmer, the vibraphone has remained a petulantly unmusical instrument in all but a few hands. Gary Burton, the one-time teenage prodigy, is still an astonishing master of the vibes after 40 years. He plays his very mixed repertoire with dazzling ingenuity and grace, supported by a long-time partner who seems wired directly into his brain - Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone.

Burton, a renowned Berklee conservatoire teacher as well as a virtuoso, emits a scholarly air, but there's not an iota of that in his music, which brims with life and an elegant euphoria. Perhaps his educationalist's urge to enlighten accounts for the breadth of his current repertoire, as if he were revealing to a doubtful world the vibraphone's potential. Burton spans everything from the pre-bop swing of vibes legends Red Norvo and Lionel Hampton to those softly lyrical, piquantly harmonised, jazz-rock pieces that made him one of the subtler pioneers of fusion in the 70s.

Burton gave a straight account of Red Norvo's freewheeling swinger Hole in the Wall, revelling in its endlessly convoluted melodic surprises, while Ozone pumped in a supply of stomping stride piano. Afro Blue - over a Cuban feel that Ozone switched to swing and back in midstream - featured a vibes solo that soared around the harmonies.

Burton's resourcefulness gave him the unruffled urbanity of a Teddy Wilson piano solo rather than the fluffiness of the vibes on Lionel Hampton's Opus Half, and his ear for improvisation made a hypnotic affair of an Ozone ballad composition with early Keith Jarrett echoes. It's a jazz-buff's night that isn't just for jazz-buffs, and it's very classy.

Till Sunday. Box office: 020-7439 8722. ***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible