Alan Barnes/Steve Waterman, The White Swan Stratford-Upon-Avon

It's a great British tradition: "Bebop spoken here". In pubs up and down the land, and especially on Sundays, musicians gather to practice dialect versions of a language first formed in the clubs of Manhattan more than half a century ago. It's a tradition that's slowly dying out, though, as unsympathetic breweries make it harder for labour-of-love landlords or local enthusiasts to pursue their age-old pleasures. But the White Swan in Stratford is a real find: a grand, nay positively Shakespearian, hostelry in ye olde town centre, where the Stratford Jazz Society programmes modern jazz every Sunday night, usually for free.

Last Sunday's offering was a special attraction costing £6, and it fulfilled yet another great jazz tradition: the visiting big-shots backed-up by a local rhythm section. When saxophonist Barnes and trumpeter Waterman took the stage at 8pm, they were meeting the pianist, double bassist and drummer for the first time. By the time they finished at 11pm, they were almost old friends. "He's not only a very good pianist," Barnes said when announcing Edgar Macias, who had played superbly throughout. "He's also a really nice bloke, a combination I haven't come across before." Then he called Charlie Parker's "Anthropology" and they were off again, sax and trumpet chasing each other's tails through the pell-mell changes. In bebop, the songs have bloodlines, like racehorses. Everything comes out of something else, usually Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm", as with Sonny Rollins's "Doxy", the appropriately Falstaffian title that followed.

In an alternative universe, Alan Barnes would be as famous as Courtney Pine or Branford Marsalis, for it's difficult to say he's an inferior saxophonist, even though he specialises in alto and baritone rather than the more fashionable tenor. Of course, in the galaxy of Sunday bebop, he probably is the greater star, and surely the only player to have performed trad with Humphrey Lyttelton at the same time as squawking for Mike Westbrook's avant-garde bands or honking with the Tommy Chase Quartet. But Barnes has such a fluent style and such a soulful sound that he's able, like original alto-boppers Jackie McLean or Sonny Criss, to express the extremes of emotion (not always a British strongpoint, in jazz or anything else) while keeping very close control. The ballad - and there's always a ballad or two - "I Fall in Love Too Easily" was delivered with great sensitivity.

Like Barnes, Steve Waterman is a tremendously accomplished player, who composes, teaches and runs his own big band. By the end, with the excellent bass and drums team of Tom Hill and Carl Hemmingsley getting better with every solo and four-bar break, they were flying.

Stratford Jazz at the White Swan (01789 298607) continues tonight with the Tim Collinson Quartet