The liner notes to this CD release of 12 piano-trombone gems points out that this is pianist Matthew Shipp's 10th duo recording for the Rogue Art label, but a first with trombone. The format has some notable precursors (like Konrad Bauer and Aki Takase's News from Berlin on the Victo label and Steve Swell and Dave Burrell's Turning Point on NoBusiness label), but with Shipp and trombonist Steve Swell, we get an entirely different approach.

Notable, above all, is the use of space and the very extensive exploitation of fine shades of colours that the two are able to bring out from their instruments, the piano at times sounding like a Glenn Gould cascade of insistent notes, or a second Viennese school composition of angular atonality, while the trombone's expressive qualities are brought out through extended techniques and a judicious use of mutes.

The compositions, spontaneously created, are all relatively short, with none longer than just over 6 minutes, but as expected from these two master improvisors, every twist and turn in the expression of their musical imagination is coherently and convincingly navigated.

Matthew Shipp in an interview once complained about how jazz producers, promoters and journalists have stopped paying attention to the evolution of the jazz artform, favouring the more retrograde and conservative artists out there, with the result that audiences are not getting wind of contemporary artists who keep pushing the limits of the craft. Anyone interested in hearing an excellent example of the state of that art should have a listen to this duo, as Shipp and Swell are two of its most creative and talented practitioners.