The last ever performance by the brilliant odd couple of Latin music was bound to be an emotional and historic event, but turned out to be even more, for it was surely one of the great concerts of the year. At the grand piano, formally dressed a light grey suit and bow tie, was the eightysomething veteran of Cuban jazz, Bebo Valdes, the father of the great Chucho Valdes, and a man whose own recording career started way back in Cuba's golden era, in the early 1950s.

Perched alongside him on a stool was one of the finest singers in the Spanish flamenco scene. Diego "El Cigala" is in his mid-30s, a cheerfully wild-looking figure with long hair and a somewhat incongruous pin-stripe suit, who sipped red wine between songs.

They seemed to have little in common, and there was certainly little eye contact between pianist and singer. Perhaps that's why they have decided to call it a day, despite the worldwide success of their album, Lagrimas Negras. Even so, the musical chemistry between them was still extraordinary; a subtle and intuitive blend of Cuban jazz and often passionate flamenco singing that created a style distinctly their own.

The show started with a batch of instrumental pieces from Valdes, in which he demonstrated his often playful, intricate and suddenly rapid-fire playing on pieces that were backed by a bassist and two percussionists, and echoed both his Cuban roots and years of exile in Europe. Then on came Cigala to match this thrilling, unpredictable piano work with vocals that could also suddenly switch from the delicate to bursts of furious, but always controlled, improvisation, driven on by his flamenco hand claps. Here was a singer who could take sweet, elegant Cuban boleros and re-work them in a gutsy, sometimes rasping flamenco style of his own. The duo started with songs from Lagrimas Negras (including a powerful treatment of the title track) and ended with Valdes' solo piano backing Cigala's now thoughtful vocals. It was a memorable, virtuoso farewell.