Going Out: Jazz & Blues

The acid-jazz sound that has taken the London club scene by storm in recent years owes no small debt to vibraphonist Roy Ayers (above). With a career stretching back to the early Sixties, Ayers, who appears at Ronnie Scott's, Frith Street from Monday, has been a prime mover in the development of the soul/ jazz and R&B/funk styles that are proving so popular.

More funk on Wednesday and Thursday when Fred Wesley, former trombonist with James Brown, appears at the Jazz Cafe, Camden with support from gospel- soul singer Lyn Collins.

Jazz of a much more mainstream variety is on offer at the nearby Pizza Express Jazz Club in Dean Street, when the swing revivalist cornet and flugelhorn player Warren Vache leads his quartet through a four-night stand from Wednesday.

Meanwhile, tomorrow at the Barbican sees a revival of a different sort - a new incarnation of Indian/jazz fusion outfit Shakti led by the virtuoso guitar player John McLaughlin.

On Friday, a guitarist of another kind - former zydeco player and now passionate bluesman Sherman Robertson - appears at Blackheath Halls in support of the powerful Audioquest CD Going Back Home.

More blues is served up at the Watermans Arts Centre, Brentford on the same night, when the hugely engaging acoustic performer Eric Bibb - whose Home to Me is just out on Manhattan Records - appears.

The Barbican Centre - still shaking off the effects of the recent Cuban festival - will be witness to more Latin fever on Friday, when famed New Yorker Willie Colon takes the stage with backing from a fine collection of Latin musicians.