Cited as a loving tribute to bassist Stefano Scodanibbio, "The Gowanus Sessions" features Thollem McDonas on piano, the guitar work of Nels Cline, and bassist William Parker in a series of exploratory settings. Thollem's playing reminds me of early Cecil Taylor a la "Looking Ahead". Although it's less dissonant overall, he certainly displays a similar physical approach. Parker is both the glue holding the music together and the wedge pushing it apart while Nels Cline seems to choose his battles, alternating between pervasive texture and carefully spaced punctuations.

He almost seems to be hiding behind the clustered piano lines and Parker's rambunctious bass on opening track "There are". His flourishes reveal themselves in the tiny spaces between Thollem's authoritative chords and add another layer of subtle counterpoint. Eventually we are left with tinkling notes fluttering above Nels' feedback and Parker's arco bowing. A more pastoral feeling inhabits 'As many worlds" with hesitant piano and plucked bass. Again, Cline is hovering in the shadows, eventually creeping in on a fog of sustain, only to recede moments later as the intensity escalates.

Cline reaches the stellar regions of his instrument early on in "In a life" as the other two engage in an impassioned dialogue. A cyclical piano soon emerges with Thollem's hands working overtime. At this point Nels is really soaring while Parker counters like a strolling sea bird on a day break beach.

"Lives" is a roiling mass of bent guitar and a piano motif that achieves gravity in its repetition. Parker freely counteracts the turmoil with zen a plum, refusing to be riled by his cohorts' maniacal discourse. Eventually Thollem pounds out a series of descending chords that transform this free for all into a loose song structure. Closing track "In the world" opens with thunderous dissonance and howling feedback. Parker plucks out a percussive rejoinder to Thollem's polychordal ravings while Nels blankets his cohorts in a soothing sustained feedback, briefly letting air into the claustrophobic melee. Fine stuff from three masters of improvisation and well worth the price of admission.