The Devil, Probably - s/t

Another beautifully presented outing on Barcelona's Urpa I Musell label that further reaches into the Spanish/Catalonian avant garde and its associates. The Devil, Probably is the result of a long distance collaboration between ridiculously prolific LA-based saxophonist, Patrick Shiroishi and Barcelona musicians, Àlex Reviriego and Vasco Trilla, and offers an interesting challenge to the taxonomy of improvisation - how do you improvise at a distance, over time? Urpa I Musell address the subject thoughtfully in their official press release, citing a Steve Lacy anecdote regarding spontaneity, notions of temporality in the context of creativity and composition which i recommend you seek out. As recondite as such dialogue can be, and a barrier sometimes for accessing the music itself, The Devil, Probably remains an engaging and inviting collection. It is, perhaps inevitably, unpredictable and free-form, but there are multiple angles of entry, oscillating between disciplines - jazz, improv, sound art, musique concrete - with a playful spirit and great guile. True, it's hard to comprehend how such music could be made with the players apart from one another, but the mystery only adds to the appeal, a sense of the alien unknown that mirrors its upsetting of tradition. If this isn't what improvisation is, then what exactly is it? To codify improv in any strict terms does seem somehow paradoxical, and through that The Devil, Probably might just represent its own small radical gesture