Dan Warburton

These eleven tracks, recorded on two separate dates, one in Los Angeles, the other in the south of France, are based on drawings (reproduced in part on the CD booklet) by Canadian percussionist Michel Lambert. These range from notated lines, chords and rhythms to maps and expressionistic swirls - "graphic scores" might be an appropriate description (further illuminating information is available at Lambert's website, www.michellambert.com). On the LA date he's joined by pianist Milcho Leviev and bassist John Giannelli, while the French session features bassist Barre Phillips and local saxophonist Lionel Garcin. Not surprisingly therefore, the music, though improvised, is closer in idiom to (free) jazz than it is to outright free improvisation, and is propelled forward by Lambert with a loose but nevertheless distinct sense of time, recalling both Barry Altschul and Sunny Murray. Superbly recorded and as fresh and colourful as Lambert's watercolours.

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