The duo of Denman Maroney on prepared piano and Mark Dresser on contrabass at the 2008 Vision Festival in NYC, and at the Storefront Theater, Chicago in 2001.
"Mark Dresser may still be best known for his tenure with one of Anthony Braxton's classic quartets, but the bassist and pianist Denman Maroney have a musical relationship stretching back some 19 years, and it showed in the highly personal duo language they have evolved.
Their unique sound world is predicated upon extended techniques, with Maroney rubbing wooden blocks along his piano strings, producing unearthly shrieks and glissandos, almost as a recurrent motif through the performance. Dresser made assured and purposeful use of the whole gamut of bass techniques, drawing from frog croaking yelps, rubber band twangs and stuttering drones in pursuit of their tandem vision. Dresser is a master: at times he simultaneously plucked and bowed to inspired effect against abrasive rubbing on the piano strings, or subtly varied the pressure as he bowed on the bridge of his bass to modulate a firm but vocalised squeaking.
Though the single 35-minute piece sounded like a free improv, both men followed a score at times, looking studious and serious. A dark lyricism contrasted with passages of subterranean rumbling piano and rusty door hinge arco, before pirouetting into a sequence of sudden starts. With the loudest applause of the evening greeting the close of probably the most challenging set, and what for some was a major highlight, it demonstrated that you should never underestimate either the stamina or the discernment of the Vision Festival audience.
A great evening with four satisfying sets displaying the wide breadth represented under the rubric of the Vision Festival and promising more to come from the rest of the week. The next night was to be Kidd Jordan night."-John Sharpe, All About Jazz Vision Festival Review
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