CD: Evan Parker/Roscoe Mitchell, Boustrophedon

This time last year, Art Ensemble of Chicago saxist Roscoe Mitchell released Composition/Improvisation Nos 1, 2 & 3, with this same 14-piece improvisers' band, the Transatlantic Art Ensemble. Pioneering UK saxist Evan Parker was a member, and this set is Parker's suite-like project with the same group. There are plenty of extended stretches of free improv - but the seamless joining of conventionally tonal music (even some jazzy phrasing and riffing) with a spikier vocabulary and some startling solos from all across the contemporary-music soundscape makes this a richer, more dramatic and more moving achievement than Mitchell's somewhat acerbic one. Pianist Craig Taborn (recently heard in Britain with David Torn's sensational Prezens quartet) establishes an atmosphere of delicacy at the opening, and long, quiet passages of string improvising are warmed by mellow clarinet, jazzy alto sax from Anders Svanoe, Corey Wilkes' blustery trumpet, and surging drumming from Paul Lytton and Tani Tabbal. Parker and Mitchell follow each other on the climactic solos, with the improvisers chasing each other in cadenzas near the close. It's a triumph for Parker, who's known a few in his revolutionary career.