"A meeting of two jazz giants: In 2015, Joey Baron, one of the most sought after drummers on the New York scene met the First Lady of European jazz, Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer, in concert in Zürich. During his long career Baron has played with bands such as Naked City and Masada and worked with musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot.

Schweizer had already performed and recorded with the best drummers on the planet: Pierre Favre, Han Bennink, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Günter "Baby" Sommer, Andrew Cyrille and Hamid Drake.

The performance of the two was one of the highlights of the Unerhört-Festival in Zürich, 2015. Their encounter had everything you could hope for: energy, drive and mesmerizing exchanges paired with the magical tunes Schweizer is famous for. "This beautiful recording documents a marvellous evening in Zürich,"-John Corbett, from the liner notes.

"Live! excises extraneous uncertainties with its succinct title, letting listeners know exactly the sort of recording they're in store for from a concert in Zurich in the fall of 2015. Irene Schweizer and Joey Baron are also absent any identifying instruments in the accompanying particulars, the safe assumption being anyone pondering procurement of the disc is already familiar with backgrounds and standing of both. Schweizer's made a veritable cottage industry out of duets with drummers under the auspices of Intakt. This hit with Baron registers right up there with the best of them, due in no small part to the breadth of experience and talent he brings to the kit.Schweizer is the elder of the two improvisers at a youthful seventy-six, but Baron's resume on record is arguably just as rife with remarkable entries. Stints as the human engine room for both John Zorn's Masada projects and Ellery Eskelin's Hat Art-sponsored trio with Andrea Parkins are just two sideman gigs amongst dozens. His output as a leader is very nearly as prolific in half a dozen different bands. Schweizer's largest body of work resides on Intakt, her relationship with the Swiss label resting on a catalog that really doesn't hold a bum date in the batch. Carving an artistic identity independent of and resolutely resistant to any slapdash Cecil Taylor comparisons to this day, her approach to the acoustic keyboard is at once powerfully holistic and meticulously intimate.A battery of polite audience applause welcomed and dispensed with and they're off, diving into Schweizer's deceptively titled "Free for All", which moves from a string of getting-to-know-you feints and pleasantries in its initial minutes to full-bore swinging sprint in its ebulliently efficacious second half. Baron's "Up the Ladder" juxtaposes a frenetic repeating rhythmic motif borne by Schweizer's dancing fingers with nimble vertical brush play, veering off on a small handful of side trips over its latticed twelve-minute expanse. "String Fever" by Schweizer echoes its title in the delicate manipulations the composer makes under the hood to tweak timbre and decay in league with an array of Baron's responsive percussion implements."Jungle Beat II" is all stop-and-go traffic in its opening minutes as a staccato stream of musical information pours from both players without once resulting in a rhythmic pile-up. Schweizer alternates block chords with frenzied right hand figures and Baron's sticks are a blur, particularly in the tour de force solo mid-piece that mixes martial aggression with a textured delicacy audible in its every nuance thanks to expertly placed and engineered recording mics. Three shorter pieces close the disc out starting with Baron's breezy "Saturdays", which Schweizer's takes to in a gorgeous admixture of poignancy and playfulness, the raucously stomping "Blues for Creilier" and "The Open Window", a piece that in title and grin-inducing temperament leaves the possibility extant for a repeat encounter.Derek Taylor
Get additional information at Dusted Magazine