Kenny Wheeler looked so frail and fragile as he walked on stage at London's Royal Academy of Music last night. The concert was to celebrate his 80th birthday, but helped to his chair by pianist John Taylor, something in you couldn’t help but wonder – would this be the night when his powers diminish?

With a quartet of Kenny, John Taylor, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Martin France, they opened with an old favourite, ‘Kind Folks’. Would the music leave him? As the notes rose from his full, rich and uniquely mellifluous flugelhorn, we knew! Not so, not this night!

From there, and a brief small group set that added Stan Sulzmann, Julian Arguelles and Evan Parker, peaks would be scaled tonight. The stage set for a magnificent orchestra of old friends and sparring partners, they played Kenny’s glistening ‘Sweet Time Suite’ and a clutch of new arrangements, including a glorious big band setting of Dudu Pukwana’s ‘B My Dear’. But then music this powerful never leaves.

– Duncan Heining