Following label Rogue Art's informal mission to span scenes across the Atlantic, Edges captures French clarinetist Sylvain Kassap and bassist Benjamin Duboc in a quartet with American drummer Chad Taylor (here on mbira, as well) and trombonist Steve Swell for a studio outing of 11 compositions and improvisations.

One can truly hear the blending of styles, from the funky underpinnings of "Texture #3" and "991" (which might just be earlier American proclivities refracted through French ears) to the casual playfulness and periodic nods toward gusty amelodic figures (which might in turn be American interpretations of European improv stylings from decades earlier). It is tough to determine where the ideas are coming from, whether in terms of geography or person, unless one takes the time to read the fine print on the back of the case. There is good reason for that. Not only has the trans-Atlantic gap narrowed over time, but this particular meeting involves four musicians with decades-deep catalogs that have restively moved from style to style with each new project. None of these musicians really has a single identifying "thing" or sound, in the way that many of past luminaries had. Rather, their playing is singular because of their eclecticism and the deliberate openness with which they pursue it.

That said, Edges is no free-for-all, nor one of those "kitchen sink" outings where anything goes. Rather, it relies on a precise blend of elements and their skillful, conscientious deployment toward certain apparently shared aesthetical goals. The result is an album of contemporary free jazz par excellence. The requisite components are present in abundance, but deployed in distinctive formations : melodic figures reminiscent of Ornette's unique predilections; jumpy transitions and tempo changes; passages of longer tonal explorations; tightly intertwining lines that spin off tendrils at a moment's notice; periodic horse-race sprints into bebop; a series of stylistically divergent but equally arresting solos and interactions, especially in the more energetic pieces, "2L8 4 U (or not)", "Urgent Dispatch" and "Periscope (For Perry Robinson) ". In other words, if you are looking for the juicy psychedelia of the Chicago Underground Collective (Taylor) or the expressionistic chamber meditations of Kassap and Duboc's duo work or Duboc's solo enterprises, you should turn to those projects. Edges is primarily melodic, drum-and-bass-driven, horn-fronted, at-times-exuberant jazz. And these guys do it with a gusto and precision that few other quartets today can muster.