The young New York-based expat pianist-composer John Escreet and pioneering saxophonist Evan Parker might seem strange bedfellows at first. But in the sleeve notes of Sound, Space and Structures, Escreet's fifth CD, he describes Parker as, “a particular inspiration, being British”. And Parker himself is well known for initiating all kinds of liaisons regardless of comfort zones. This collaboration though was one of Escreet's ideas. He was waiting for the right moment and that came when Parker was in New York curating a programme at the Stone in September 2013.

The pianist's trio, formed in 2010, were invited to join Parker on the live residency and days later they were recording together in the studio. For those who have been excited by Escreet's previous releases, prepare yourself for something less tied to the jazz idiom, that of the progressive kind that's going down in Brooklyn. Escreet has increasingly turned to the experimental sides to jazz since arriving in New York in 2006. Inevitably with Parker on the session, the pianist enters an environment dominated by more abstract improv than previously, this set being entirely improvised. On the opener ‘Part I’ Escreet plays solo, alternating between hammering the keys insistently like an avant garde version of the pianist Neil Cowley and Cecil Taylor-like percussive splashes. ‘Part II’ introduces Hebert feeling his way through a bass soliloquy as if slowly waking up from a deep sleep. He cues the first entry from the inimitable Parker, his spiralling harmonics joining with Escreet's tinkling piano in a compellingly eerie sequence of falsetto playing. The sharply tuned synchronisation of the band continues into the latter stages and on ‘Part VII’, Parker's microtonal outpourings sit on what sounds like a rare jazz groove at first with Hebert's rapid walking bass and the excellent Tyshawn Sorey's fluttering drums. For the closing ‘Part IX’, Parker's soprano sax whirls as if in an intoxicated phase of a devotional prayer, and the trio follows as only a congregation would.