Following a rich musical apprenticeship that included spells in the seminal art-punks Magazine and Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, the Mancunian bass guitarist turned neo-jazz crooner has been a solo artist for almost 20 years. Only in the past decade has Barry Adamson begun putting words to his largely instrumental compositions, producing some of his best work in the process.

Adamson’s self-consciously nostalgic sound is grounded in bebop jazz and vintage film soundtracks, but flexible enough to incorporate burbling electronica, avant-garde dissonance and straight pop dynamics — often in the space of a single song. During his Jazz Café set, several tracks opened like suave Dean Martin ballads before disappearing in a torrent of squawking, squealing saxophones and atonal guitars. This approach may pay homage to such jazz titans as Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, but something of the contrary Manchester punk rocker survives in these ear-bashing workouts. Which is a good thing, naturally.

Dark humour is another Adamson trademark, and his latest album, Stranger on the Sofa, contains some of his funniest lyrics yet. There was wry wordplay galore in the furtive, quasi-rap monologue My Friend the Fly and the rollicking big-band rocker You Sold Your Dreams, both taken from the new album. Likewise the dishevelled easy-listening yarn Jazz Devil and the bluesy heartbreak ballad Come Hell or High Water, their film noir shadows leavened with mordant wit.

The set’s weaker moments were generally those with the sparest arrangements, exposing Adamson’s vocal limitations. When he strained for classic crooner heights on the widescreen ballad Whispering Sheets or strummed an acoustic guitar on the solo encore reading of his Dylanesque single Long Way Back Again, his pedestrian voice fell short of his stylistic range.

In between attempts to find common ground between Tom Waits, John Barry and Serge Gainsbourg, Adamson bashed out rowdy cover versions of vintage Roxy Music and Sly Stone tunes. This ramshackle fusion of styles was sometimes clumsy, but always commendably ambitious.

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