*** Derek Bailey & Joëlle Léandre

NO WAITING

(Potlach)

Bailey has placed his brittle, elusive guitar playing in some unexpected contexts lately (including Japanese punk rockers the Ruins and a quartet with Pat Metheny), but here he's in a more familiar setting, one-on-one in concert with another European free improviser, in this case, contemporary classical French bassist Joëlle Léandre. A veteran of several of Bailey's Company free-improv get-togethers, Léandre brings a fine ear for sonic and rhythmic nuance, a highly developed sense of structure, and a large repertoire of extended techniques. She's an uncommonly lyrical free-improviser, with an almost song-like quality and focus to even her most abstract moments. She and Bailey are sympathetic partners with independent concerns but enough in common to give the music intriguing creative tension. The warmth of her playing makes a nice foil for Bailey's prickliness, and their search for new sounds and unexpected juxtapositions is full of shocks and surprises.

-- Ed Hazell