Trumpeter Axel Dorner is unusually all over the map for a player so superb in the esoteric world of minimalist improvisation. He�s worked with the luminaries (Keith Rowe, Thomas Lehn, Kevin Drumm), but he also shows up in some seriously heavy jazz ensembles, such as the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Otomo Yoshihide�s New Jazz Orchestra and the epitome of European free jazz, the Globe Unity Orchestra.

Without doubt a gifted player, it�s perhaps in the quiet realms when his voice seems most personal. And one of the more satisfying recordings he�s made in that sphere is A.D., a wonderfully evocative duo with Angharad Davies. The London-based violinist works often with her brother, harpist Rhodri Davies and has performed realizations of John Cage�s indeterminate scores, and so is no stranger to micro-soundworlds.

The meeting occurred in December, 2008, without an audience, and both the performances and the recording are rich in detail and subtlety. Davies and Dorner share a knack for moving in and out of their instruments� given voices, creating abstract geographies abetted by Davies� knack for preparing the strings and Dorner�s vocabulary of breathing, then lighting the landscapes with soft bursts of brass and string. The three tracks (each about 15 minutes) vary nicely in dynamic as well. Within their quietude, they craft something sublime.