John Etheridge Pizza Express Jazz Club, London W1

Filling in the blanks of guitarist John Etheridge's career between a stint in the 1970s with rock band Soft Machine to his current duet project with fellow guitarist John Williams would take a piece of closely written A4. But it's safe to say he'd never played a solo concert until premiering his latest album, I Didn't Know.

He's been there, done that so many times during his career that he even dug out one of the T-shirts for the show.

Armed only with five guitars, from a Fender to a fretless, and a suitcase-sized amp, he fearlessly set about masterfully deconstructing an eclectic range of songs. A dazzling look-at-me introduction acted as calling card and CV, saying everything you needed to know about John Etheridge - here was a master guitarist at work.

Cognisant of many styles and able to dip in and out at will, Etheridge avoided nailing all his colours to one stylistic mast alone. From Charlie Parker's 'Now's the Time' to 'My Romance', a standard associated with pianist Bill Evans, to Charlie Mingus's 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,' he made them all his own.

Even the spiritual 'Swing Low' took on a new glow, but unlike the English rugby team you knew the wheels were never going to come off Etheridge's chariot. A player capable of creating the elegant and the profound, he settled for the former, even on a spontaneous piece of rock impressionism of a sleepless night.