One of the many beautiful things about America is that it is a land of immigrants, and consequently of many voices and peoples, and this has probably been true since as far back as the Bering Strait migrations. In jazz and improvised music, New York City in particular is a crucible of culture, where talents get merged in an alchemy that produces some fine music. This release by Israeli-born tenor saxophonist/bass clarinet player Assif Tsahar and Japanese-American percussionist/drummer Tatsuya Nakatani is a clear example of such amalgamations.

The magic happens in 20 tracks that line up in a free flowing sequence of improvised gems released on the Levontyin7/Hopscotch records imprint. Twenty glowing musical miniatures of variegated beauty, starting with Ellington's "I Got it Bad" and running through variations with titles (all infinitive verbs urging action) like "Define," "Deliver," "Gaze," and so on, leading up to the last track, "Glow."

The individual tracks are spare and short with most of them hovering around 2-3 minutes and a few at about the 5 minute mark. The sequencing from one track to the other is fluid and coherent and the whole, clocking it at 67 minutes, is a very satisfying set of surprisingly linked yet varied sound clusters. This variety is especially impressive given the duo format: Tsahar makes use of extended techniques on his horn and switches to the bass clarinet from the tenor in a couple of tracks, astute in the use of dynamics contributing to the diversity of the album. Nakatani makes use of a panoply of percussive equipment, from full drum kit, to hand drums, bells, bowed cymbals, or wood blocks. The album use minimalism but makes full use of the range of the instruments in sensitive and passionate playing, making this a captivating set of music.