There's something strange in the tides of men when an album is promoted as “real music performed in front of a live audience.” One has to question how parameters have changed although, being a perverse soul, I like the notion of “surreal music performed to a dead audience.” I'd go. But enough of this love talk. The gig's origins may lie in a tour for Hudson DVD and D&3x0027;Addario, but fear not, the chaps haven't turned up just for the paycheck and canapés. Indeed, cut to the closing “Modern Day Tuba”, and you'll find the gents burning joyously against Erskine's sprung rhythms. The underrated Mintzer kicks the shebang off with his own bop extravaganza ‘Runferyerlife’. Like all the greats, Mintzer seems to have so much time while playing at breakneck velocity. But it's Erskine who steals the show with power and articulation in equal measure. He may look like a chemistry teacher, but here he's in particularly spiky mood, especially when raging against those mellifluous, bar stretching chords of Abercrombie, who likewise surprises and surges in equal measure. The bass player's cool too.