Early in their careers, and early in the formation of the genre of European free improvisation, Han Bennink and Evan Parker were frequent playing partners, popping up together on key dates like Machine Gun and The Topography of the Lungs. But they have since come to occupy prominent places in virtually nonoverlapping areas of the music, to the point where the appearance of this recent duo disc came as a considerable surprise. The mere juxtaposition of the names promised improv fans an alluringly provocative stylistic mismatch between Parker’s dour complexity and Bennink’s disruptive shtick, high volume and pell-mell swing, with the outcome anybody’s guess.

In the event, the disc is strangely unsatisfactory. This is surely one of Bennink’s most constrained and lowest-energy performances on record, with his usual play-anything showmanship barely registering beyond the odd dab of birdcalls and the opening holler on track 2. The two men seem locked into stilted, half-responsive dialogue, when often one wishes precisely that they set aside such an effort and each go their own way regardless, doing each what they’re best at. The attempt to find common ground ends up counterproductive: for two players with large and highly personal sound-worlds at their command, this is surprisingly drab. Bennink in particular does little except alternate between two approaches: either interminable stop-start playing, or a fade-up on a brisk swing rhythm.

The album’s better moments mostly come on the opening 15-minute track, “Traps of Appetite” (though it could profitably have been curtailed around the 12-minute mark, after which it falters badly). By contrast, the second track, the episodic 20-minute “Traps of Instinct,” is the weakest thing here, taking almost two minutes to actually get going and a further two minutes at the end for the players to figure out that it’s already over. The rest of the album comprises six shorter pieces, of which the most notable is perhaps “Smoke of Sacrifice,” on which Parker delivers an uncharacteristic series of vocalized wails and moans on his tenor (his sole instrument throughout the disc). Despite the eminence of the two players, The Grass Is Greener turns out merely an unexceptional entry in the already oversubscribed category of one-off improv duet discs.

Parker and Phil Wachsmann have frequently been documented together in the context of large ensembles such as the LJCO or Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, but The Needles provides an intriguing example of their work in a less mediated context. The violinist and saxophonist blend together well, working within a similar pitch-range (Parker keeps to soprano except on one track), but they nonetheless have markedly different stylistic signatures. I am struck by the pervasive sardonic edge to Wachsmann’s playing, for instance, and by how it still makes reference to recognizable generic landmarks (from classical music, mostly – though I thought I caught a snatch of country fiddling at one point!). It makes for a piquant contrast to Parker’s more abstract and sombre style. Their playing partner here is the Finnish bassist Teppo Hauta-aho, probably best known for his work with Edward Vesala.

CD 1 documents the trio’s first meeting, a live date from 2000 in Kerava. It is marred by variable recording quality: though things start out perfectly fine, by the midpoint of the album the string players have become distant and indistinct. Nonetheless, there’s much of interest in these three long improvisations, which are marked by quite different group dynamics. The most successful is perhaps the second, “A Punky and a Song,” where the three players seem most evenly balanced in their musical dialogue (even if not in the mix); the results are attractively spacious and elusive. CD 2 reunites the trio in 2001 for a session at London’s Gateway Studios, and benefits from better sound and balance. The disc includes three brief solo features for the players, but the meat of the session is two long trio improvisations. The title-track is a graceful and almost weightless 24-minute improvisation which contains few busy or crowded moments (indeed, Parker mostly eschews circular breathing) and no obvious climaxes. It’s a remarkable piece of music.

Nate Dorward

Coda, March/April 2003