A meeting of two of the seminal American musicians on French label Rogueart. Trombonist Steve Swell and pianist Matthew Shipp have long illustrious histories with a previous overlap – both worked with producer El-P some 20 years ago – but here they sound very bonded, as the best players can when they home into one each other’s world and work out a shared language.

Almost a century ago Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines made astounding brass-keyboard music and although it may seem fanciful to compare their ‘classic jazz’ to two enduring heroes of the avant-garde an obvious and undeniable link between them is a sense of playfulness as well as mystery and imagination. It is significant that Shipp and Swell are used to lengthy if not marathon performances but opt for brevity over a dozen tracks with an average duration of 3'30".

Enormous knowledge is offset by astute self-editing. Sonically that means a lot of space, both in the sense of room for manoeuvre and the place where you meet Sun Ra, for when Swell makes his ballooning low notes float on the steely hammerings of Shipp’s rhythm the result is an oddity fit for a miniature arkestra. Elsewhere the duo’s negotiation of slowness, as if they wanted quarter note swing to be static in mid-air, as well as their teasing dynamics, which take them back and forth between minute and mass of sound, hold the interest. ‘Dark Matter’, a minor blues gone deliciously weird, is a highpoint in this respect. Superior duo music, then. Two kindred spirits tune into one another and capture frequencies from far and wide.