Wayne Shorter, Barbican, London

Wayne Shorter certainly pulls a crowd these days - less than a year after his previous Barbican concert with this quartet, he was back for the first of four evenings of Shorter music. Other concerts in the series are split between LSO St Luke's and the Barbican proper and put him in a variety of contexts, from duos to orchestras.

This first evening started with his duo partner of the second evening, the French master pianist Martial Solal, giving an unbroken solo recital lasting some 15 minutes. On sitting at the piano Solal had crunched out an unfathomable chord and, Erroll Garner style, then spent the rest of his time at the keyboard playing around at lightning speed with what it had suggested to him. It seems it suggested Duke Ellington more than anything else for, while touching on at least 10 different themes, he circled around "Caravan", "Mood Indigo" and "Satin Doll" like a hawk. A bewildered audience gave him a warmly polite round of applause that was as abrupt as all the musical shifts he'd made.

Shorter and his quartet - Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade - ambled onstage after the interval and, as usual, said not a word for the next hour or so. Playing the same set as they had a year ago, the band made it clear from their nods and smiles to each other (plus Perez's occasional yelps) that they were enjoying themselves, but the first number, which lasted over 45 minutes and consisted of a dozen or so themes in quick succession, never really took off, with only Perez sounding truly inspired.

Shorter mostly noodled, swapping between a badly amplified tenor and a more audible soprano sax in search of motivation; Blade was attentive but subdued, while Patitucci did everything he could to get things going from behind his acoustic bass. Yet, even though he took his shoes off (he had a hole in one sock that revealed a nicely pink big toe) his lack of a truly lyrical approach meant that his scurries up and down the fretboard remained just that. Thankfully, the piece did finally end, to thunderous applause, and the next two pieces were shorter (no pun intended), tautly arranged and a good deal more dynamic. Fully connected, Shorter got just a touch animated and Blade lashed out with venom to get the blood circulating once more.

Though there were thunderous ovations and encores called for, the concert reminded this reviewer of nothing so much as the unworldly hubris of the elite scholars of Herman Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game and the ultimate sterility of that game. A man of Shorter's genius really should be throwing those beads all over the place, even at the age of 70.