Two saxophone giants come together at the Chicago Cultural Center to pay homage to drummer and fine artist Milford Graves, as part of the seventh Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music that was held on 26 April, 2003. The seven pieces that make up McPhee and Parker's ‘Sweet Nothings’ suite were performed before Graves’ passing in 2021, thus being more of a celebratory salute to the man and his work rather than a respectful memorial. Captured by mobile recordist Malachi Ritscher, this is only the second time that McPhee and Parker have played together as a duo, the first being at a Chicago studio in 1998 where they restricted themselves to only playing tenor saxophones.

The resulting Chicago Tenor Duets recording was eventually released on Japanese label Okka Disk in 2002. Here they widen their instrumentation by adding soprano saxophones and McPhee's pocket cornet to the mix, a decision that pushes their tightly meshed playing into more varied areas of exploration.

Abandoning any desire to let rip, McPhee and Parker choose instead to calmly connect and bounce ideas off each other. The result is an amiable musical duel between two improvisational masters where resonance, harmony and shades of playful discord blend together to produce sounds that are still challenging but also, at times, tender.