Captured live at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival in Slovenia, the music here is made up of two tracks uniting the formidable trumpeters Peter Evans and Nate Wooley and the poly-talented drummers Jim Black and Paul Lytton. Wooley and Lytton play together and tour as a duo, and Jim Black is part of the Peter Evans Quintet, although this is their first outing as duo, as far as I can tell. So this feels a little like two trumpet/drum duos rather than two trumpets and two drums, but at times this is also a full-fledged and full-throttle quartet. On the two tracks, called "Beginning" and "End," we hear a melding of the distinct talents of these musicians who are at the top of their form, chops wise and in terms of inventiveness.
Wooley and Evans are undeniably at the cutting edge of trumpet style and technique these days, with an impressively wide arsenal of articulations, textural capabilities and musical ideas ranging from concise melodicism and minimalistic noise, to ecstatic and industrial strength circular breathing drones. These guys can do anything with a trumpet, it seems, and they are also fluent composers in a live setting.
Lytton and Black can be distinguished by the contrast to their approach, Lytton going for a full-out wash-and-punctuate style, whereas Black seems to dig into pockets of rhythm and outlines more hard-edged contours. Lytton's credentials, of course, precede him, from his work with Evan Parker and many a likewise skilled improviser over the decades. Black, for his part, cut some deep sides with Dave Douglas in his early career as well as having been active in the golden days of the Knitting Factory scene in NYC.
Of the gargantuan matching of talents here, one thing is certain: from first spin to last, this is music that will keep you on the edge of your chair and dropping your jaw from time to time in the music's many transporting moments.
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