Abdullah Chhadeh, Purcell Room

We all know the sound of the zither, thanks to Anton Karas's visible vibrations in The Third Man. But we tend to forget how widely this instrument is spread across the globe, and in what a medley of forms. Whether it's 13 silk strings stretched over a six-foot tree-trunk in Japan, or a big beast hammered on a table in Hungary, or slung round the neck of a strolling minstrel in South America, it's still the same thing.

In Persian classical music, it's called the santur and plays a pivotal role; in Lebanon and Syria, it goes by the name of qanun - meaning "rule" or "law" - and there, too, it can command the stage. But on the London scene it's usually a curiosity, brought in to spice up wind and strings, and it needs clever miking to hold its own. What a pleasure, then, to find it in pole position in the Purcell Room, and in the hands of an acknowledged master.

Abdullah Chhadeh is a Syrian refugee who was born in the Golan Heights and trained in Damascus. As he explained to me during the interval, his training has been in the classical styles of both Arabia and the West, and with his band in Damascus he developed an unusual line in Arabised Vivaldi. This composer-virtuoso now divides his time between purveying hard-core Arabic traditional music, and a softer-focus version for Western ears: here, with a British drummer, an Irish bassist, and fellow-Syrians on the ney (a wind instrument), daf (a frame drum), and accordion, he gave us a taste of both.

First, Chhadeh delivered a qanun solo imbued with Japanese delicacy: his particular technique is to use eight fingers to strum while the forefingers operate the plectra, and the resultant hard/soft textures are arresting. Then he brought in the other instruments one by one, duetting with the goblet drum, duelling with the accordion, while the gently-plucked bass set up a dreamy undertow. When things really got going, Chhadeh revealed himself to be at once a generator of excitement, and a skilled manipulator of silence. This was his London debut: he should come back soon.

Chhadeh could become the next cool thing: the Brazilian Cibelle has been presented as the height of current cool, but that wasn't how she came over at the Jazz Café. Her new album puts a skilful melange of studio effects under her breathily insinuating voice: in the flesh, looking like an androgynous reincarnation of Freddie Mercury, her act is just too raw.

Bumping and grinding at the microphone is not enough to fire an audience, and for the first half hour she delivered American smooch, rather than the Latin stuff people wanted: only when she crossed the pond did things take wing. But we got some nice guitar-playing, and a rousing encore in "Bangbang My Baby Shot Me Down".