The Atlantic Waves festival, which embraces Portuguese pop, electronica and fado, draws to a close with wall-to-wall free jazz and improvisation at the Spitz, which allows for an audience that's both attentive and relaxed.

The first group, assembled by violist Ernesto Rodrigues, were very quiet, with sounds from prepared strings, mouthpiece-less soprano sax and trumpeter Masafumi Ezaki, who at one point drags his instrument across a drum head to make little noises. When Ezaki plays a sustained note, it seems almost perverse. There are beautiful sounds and ugly ones. And times when nothing much happens, with dull sounds. Their long, unbroken improvisation was more like a series of studies than a work of art.

The second act featured Korean cellist Okkyung Lee and fast-fingered guitarist Manuel Mota. Lee has a distinctive sound, phenomenal technique and huge stamina, but this last attribute also lets her down: she hardly ever stops.

The headliners are Sei Miguel's group plus US guitarist Joe Morris. After the whispering and the full-frontal attacks, this line-up seems reductionist, with widely spaced beats. Rarely have timbales sounded so stark, so unfunky. Morris is compelling, like an avant-garde Jim Hall, with a great sound on his semi-acoustic guitar. He's fleet and eloquent, with an impressive technique and the ability to listen to and interpret what's happening around him. The small, sympathetic audience rewards him with the evening's first really enthusiastic applause.