Ken Peplowski, the 43-year-old Ohio clarinettist and saxophonist, began by assuring the audience that he had not voted for George Bush. He then, along with pianist Ben Aronov, bassist Dave Green and drummer Martin Drew, shared an exploration of breezy bop-flavoured swing and subtle balladeering that demonstrated the open-minded qualities apparently missing from contemporary politics.

Peplowski started out in the Tommy Dorsey legacy band, and principally as a clarinettist. It is still on the clarinet that he is at his best, holding long notes with a quivering cello-like ardour and securing the audience's attention even when lowering his volume to the margins of audibility. But Peplowksi is also a fine mainstream swinger on tenor saxophone, and his sensitivity to nuance allows him at times to affect an almost alto-like fragility, as if Ellington's romantic poet Johnny Hodges had picked up the instrument.

Peplowski launched his show with uncharacteristic busyness, on a boppish fast piece by Aranov. The saxophonist steered unerringly through this chordal challenge, then became light, airy and almost frivolous on Only a Rose. But an earthier and grainier sound swelled up in his tenor solo as it developed, and his ideas seemed to crowd urgently before giving way to a typically shapely bass solo from Green. The solo neatly caught what makes Peplowski unusual as a saxophonist: a blend of sly Cool School melodic intrigue and swing-era bravura.

The quirky and the breezily outgoing sides of Peplowski's musical character emerged in a squirty, almost indignant-sounding clarinet account of I Won't Dance over Drew's infectious cymbal hiss and hi-hat snap. A Jobim ballad was the highlight, however: a masterly exercise in tone control and understatement.

· At the Gonville Hotel, Cambridge (01799 530512), on Sunday, then touring.