| Three veteran British avant-gardists--saxophonist Evan Parker, bassist Barry Guy, and percussionist Paul Lytton, all long-time collaborators--are joined here by one of the most advanced of North American free improvisers, pianist Marilyn Crispell. Their well-matched idiosyncrasies and maturity emerge everywhere on this studio-live two-CD program. In improvisations of this kind, the styles and approaches of players may be or become familiar--Parker's fondness for warbling, fluttering runs, for example--but their deployment remains startling and requires and rewards focused listening. Parker's playing, ever evolving, makes one think, say, of the firing and rippling of ganglions--mingling aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional energies. A particular delight is "Where Heart Revive," a 25-minute piece in which Parker delivers a staggering flood of unimaginable sound on tenor saxophone, while Crispell, enormously skilled, rumbles in support. Guy and Lytton are ever alert, the latter flickering over his cymbals and drums with an admirable sense of when to interject silence. The results are thoroughly compelling. --Peter Monaghan |