Michael Moss, Billy Stein, Intervals

When something clicks in open-ended duo improvisations, and you've been around a while and heard many such pairings, well, you just KNOW it. That's the case with the duo tandem of reedman Michael Moss and electric guitarist Billy Stein on their CD Intervals (4th Stream-ERG Publishing 2013).

They get on the express train to hipsville from the start and you are in for a ride as listener. Billy Stein has an excellent sense of how to expand the tonality via some excellent chordal sequences and chord-line comping; his solo time is well spent working along those lines as well. He sets things up for Michael Moss to sound out adventurous, soulful free-wailing lines. And Michael sounds terrific, inspired. There are some loose compositional frameworks from time to time that work well and there are inventive segments of pure improvisation.

Either way the two create impressive, impassioned music together. Michael turns in beautiful solos on tenor, clarinet, flute, bass clarinet, and even the shofar horn. Each change of instrument inspires Billy to complement with another way into the freedom and the interest level never flags.

So I would certainly recommend you get this one. It's freedom at its finest!