Patricia Brennan and Sylvie Courvoisier: Talamanti

It is more than fair to say—right from the start of their kinship in early 2023, in the Sylvie Courvoisier 4 with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss—that there was something innate, and perhaps more importantly, intimate, between road-clearing pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and rascally vibraphonist Patricia Brennan.

Talamanti proves that big time.

Organically the sharply focused work of two fearless, free spirits, Talamanti, (the main language of indigenous, Aztec-era Mesoamericans) culminates or, dare one say, consummates, on such deliriously lasting moments (using words like tracks or songs seems to belittle the work at hand) as "In Your Pursuit," "Trece Cielos," "Hojas de Malabar," and "The Time We Spent."

The percussive lines of their chosen instruments enrapt this duo. So, in a whole Milky Way of ways, party-crashing "Desperate Chase" is both a steeplechase and not a steeplechase, commanding terrain of its own choosing.  And it is through that errant terrain—testy, zesty, un-repentant—that Courvoisier, at home in either concert hall or ten-seater, and Brennan, whose brash, elastic intellect (all but two of the nine compositions here are hers) draws attention wherever it incarnates; create, from nothing more than nothing more, timelessness "Coma Berenices;" and visions that vibrate, "EQ Distance"

Put into our volatile tongue, Talamanti could be things that resemble one another while remaining distinct, and that sets up a whole other slate of possibilities. Both the previously highlighted, "EQ Distant," and "Trece Cielos" ("the three heavens") are perfect opposites that meet in the middle. And though the enjoyment, understanding, and pursuit of free jazz is a totally subjective enterprise one takes on knowing full well the odd corner it inhabits, Courvoisier's feral "Corto," followed by the vibraphonist's sensory "Perdidos en el Lamento," meld to make Talamanti a whole piece of this era's great art.

It may be too early to call Talamanti kin to such free jazz duos as Matthew Shipp and Ivo Perelman, Marilyn Crispell and Anthony Braxton, Chick Corea and Gary Burton, or even Courvoisier's recent duos triumphs with Wadada Leo Smith and Mary Halvorson. But time, and our recollection of it, will tell.