These two giants got to the top early, Barron being 19 when he arrived with Gillespie, and Holland coming up for 22 on joining Miles. Working together again after starting out as a duo two years ago, the principals will appear at the QEH around the same time as this magazine. Both are solid, super-competent players who don't ham it up in order to get audience approval; as a result their excellence creeps up on you, and almost guarantees that this album will be even more impressive on subsequent hearings than on first acquaintance. The material is, as you might expect, pleasantly varied but not deliberately attention-grabbing, including several originals by Barron (such as ‘Seascape’) and Holland (for instance, ‘The Oracle’ and ‘Waltz For K.W.’ – guess who?). And three jazz standards are well chosen, with ‘In Walked Bud’, Parker's ‘Segment’ and Strayhorn's ‘Daydream’ each earning thoughtful and fluid treatments. The above comments risk sounding like faint praise, but rest assured that more controversial music would be no more stimulating than this dialogue between those with nothing to prove.