The New York-based Brit expat pianist John Escreet was so inspired by the enterprise that had evolved from his 2014 CD Sound, Space and Structures and a few live performances that he decided to gather the same personnel for a new recording and a more substantial touring schedule. It's his trio of six years plus guest saxophonist Evan Parker, a titan of the international improv scene. They perform an all-improv set live on the last two nights of a Dutch tour at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam and Lantaren Venster in Rotterdam. Over two extended pieces of 45 and 30 minutes, thunderous yet ethereal soundscapes are pit against 20th century avant-garde elements and something resembling exhilarating progressive jazz, with Parker's iron-toned sax shifting between the cosmic and chattering, vocalised abstractions. There's a high level of rapport and an intense group engagement that belies the apparent idiomatic differences between the trio. They don't exist here and the music is thoroughly invigorating.

Jazzwise spoke to John Escreet about the album

What was the inspiration behind this all-improv meeting?

I had always wanted to put Evan with my regular working trio from NYC, which we did a few years ago when we made the album Sound, Space and Structures. Evan is a complete original, and is someone I had long wanted to collaborate with. Knowing the kind of musicians that John Hébert and Tyshawn are, I knew that it would fit perfectly.

Since that album we have done the occasional performance here and there, but this was the first time we had gone on the road and played a few nights in a row.

Although you have played regularly with your trio, you've gone in at the deep end with the master himself, Evan Parker!

Deep end for sure! Evan occupies a conceptual and sonic space that no one else does, and his commitment to the music is mind-blowing.

The level of concentration, openness, and sensitivity/reactivity required to keep up with someone 40 years older than me really puts things in perspective! Yet at the same time that openness makes it somehow super easy.

What are the main differences and parallels between the approach of your trio and this entirely free music-making approach?

The trio by itself has been in existence since 2010, and my musical relationship with Tyshawn goes back a few years before that. We have played all kinds of complex, composed music in each other's groups. When we play as a trio we tend to play a lot of detailed, thru-composed original music of mine, but there are still always a lot of open sections and room for ‘free’ improvisation – segues/interludes etc. Even though we play a lot of composed music as a trio, adding Evan just turns it into spontaneous composition. So in some ways it's not that much different if you get in the right mind set. The same important elements apply in both settings – musical structure, clarity of thought and ideas, and looking at the bigger picture of the overall piece. I don't really like the term ‘free improvisation’ because I like to be free in any musical setting.

The first piece is 45 minutes in length. How do you go about giving it structure and avoid it being directionless, how can, say, the middle relate to the beginning or the beginning to the end for example in this music?

It's not something I consciously think about during performance. We never discussed anything prior to performance, literally not a single thing. I think it just ends up not being directionless because we are all working together to create this spontaneous composition, and we all have the same end goal – to make it sound interesting and compelling.

Everyone is working together with absolutely no ego, and everyone is at the service of the music. I guess the music has a lot of contrast, and at some point everyone plays solo for a while. Those kind of things help.

Can you tell us something about the free improv scene in New York and what has influenced you in that area?

I'm not sure that the free improv scene in New York has influenced me that much to be honest, and as already mentioned I'm not keen on that term anyway. Certain people I play gigs with incorporate that element into their music, as I often do in my own bands. But it's all the same thing to me – it's all music.