This week's double bill at Ronnie Scott's neatly balances two opposing musical persuasions: the one that suggests the familiar and then avoids it, and the one that telegraphs every punch. Alex Wilson's quartet is reshaping Latin jazz with imagination and elan. The Woody Herman tribute band, combining the hits of one of the most famous swing orchestras of the 1940s and 1950s with more contemporary material, is giving big-band fans the full treatment. From the jazz angle, it's close to something for everyone.

Alex Wilson, a 30-year-old pianist of mixed English and African origins who plays with Courtney Pine and Jazz Jamaica, really does play Latin jazz - improvising with the structure and the notes - rather than the "party-on" chord-clattering that often passes for it. Wilson is a tireless student of the traditions of the region; his band is investigating Colombian music.

Wilson's quartet (piano, bass, drums and congas) thus drew an audience of big-band fans, who had come for Herman, into their musical world. They played Miles Davis's Solar at a gentle Latin shuffle, hinting at salsa chord-patterns but resolving them in unexpected harmonies, exploding into fast jazz-time. They played pensively romantic Colombian musicas conga player Emeris Solis tolled out a pulse with mallets on a big drum. There was plenty of technique but a lot more music, and no grandstanding effects. The audience greeted it warmly.

The Woody Herman Orchestra, led by veteran reedman Frank Tiberi, then slammed into a racing Apple Honey (Tiberi soloing on clarinet while the brass whooped), and swayed through a smoky Early Autumn, originally a vehicle for a teenage Stan Getz in 1947. A Chick Corea piece confirmed that the ensemble isn't stuck with its legacy obligations. Although the fizzy arrangements win out over the solos, for big-band buffs, this was a treat.

· Ends tomorrow. Box office: 020-7439 0747.