Bass legend Dave Holland recalls that the spark for this beautiful dialogue with the Benin-born guitarist/vocalist Lionel Loueke sprang from an unrelated soundcheck in which they began improvising together and immediately realised they had happened on a dialogue packed with stories to come.

"It wasn’t just sound, it was something bigger", the bassist recalled of that moment.

Just how much mental and muscular memory an early absorption in West African music followed by adventures with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and other jazz luminaries (Loueke’s) and jazz years with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Anthony Braxton and composer/leadership of his own groundbreaking contemporary groups (Holland’s) might have opened up to their moment-by-moment partnership is apparent all over this entrancing session.

A pumping groove, Loueke’s percussively-hissy outbreaths like finger-snaps, and Holland’s sinewy bass rhythm drive the opening ‘Essaouira’, and the whispered vocals of the following ‘Pure Thought’ illuminates the pair’s shared awareness of a folk-jazzy lyricism not that far from Pat Metheny’s PMG.

The Afro-funk and Latin/contemporary jazz cool of ‘Tranxit’ is a highlight for its fast-weaving bass improv and breathlessly choppy strummed rhythm, ‘Celebration’ pits Scofield-like fragments of jazzy guitar figures against Holland’s deep sonorities, ‘Life Goes On’ is has Frisellian country echoes - and ‘Humanism’ (sung by Loueke in French) is a mix of edgy guitar figures, exultant vocals and gracefully flowing basslines that forms a vivid sketch of the intentions of a set entitled United.