Denny Zeitlin, George Marsh, Expedition, Duo Electroacoustic Improvisations

Nothing can be taken for granted in music or in life. Yet Denny Zeitlin and George Marsh have been playing together off and on so long and so productively that we might be guilty of overlooking just how much they have grown as individuals and as musical partners over the years. It has not been a continuous unbroken association since Denny had George on hand as a part of an excellent trio in the late '60s.

So with a new installment of their work together at hand, Expedition, Duo Electro-Acoustic Improvsations (Sunnyside SSC 1487), we are well served by listening closely.

Denny, of all the pianists that expanded from just acoustic piano to a live combination of the acoustic instrument and multiple synths, etc., has been one of the most brilliant exemplars of maintaining a very high level of musicality while orchestrating the notes with a composer's sense of variation in timbres and textures.

George in the meantime has become the ideal drummer in such a setting, with a sure sense of swing and a beautiful full and varied drum set sound.

The new one flows so well and so musically that I feel we are in the presence, that a lifetime of talent, and musical soul and brains is culminating in some of the very best "electro-acoustic" jazz ever! This one really ravishes our musical senses and gives us a virtual jazz orchestra that will make a believer out of the mouldiest figs of acoustic purity. This is above all integrated spontaneity, with complete timbral mastery joining fittingly with free jazz inventiveness of the highest order.

In the listening is the confirmation. Expedition is one of the finest jazz albums of the year!