Hal Singer and David Murray on Marge CD:

I will get into this a lot more soon, but there is no doubt that jazz not only thrives, but has been moving ahead strongly as a vital art form in France, as well as to a lesser extent in continental Europe, while falling past the state of a stagnant art form into being a narrow dinosaur music in America.

France embraced jazz in the 1920's, and even more so in the 40's, and today great, great jazz recordings are coming at a steady pace in France, while jazz on record has largely died in the USA - all that's left is dinosaur warhorse reissues of a rather narrow taste, or formulaic smooth jazz that is at best polite background muzak. Not so in France. When jazz started it's death spiral in America in the 1970's, many great artists started recording in Europe, and in fact, most did by far their best work there, largely unnoticed back home. I'm talking about folks like Kenny Drew, Duke Jordan, George Coleman, Max Roach, Clifford Jordan, Andrew Hill, and many many others.

Of the next generation, there was also David Murray.

Released in December last year on the Marge label, who have been around for quite some time, here is a CD of the 2010 meeting of the aging veteran Hal Singer and David Murray, two tenors coming together very much in the style of the classic Griffin/Lockjaw encounters, with a fine rhythm section in a fine blowing session. Aptlt titled "Challenge", the session is sraight ahead, as is the recording. No frills or gloss here. Just the real goods.

Murray tends to downplay his fire and altissimo cries here in deference to the more mellow toned Singer, who is very much in the Von Freeman mold tonally and pitch wise. Singer is actually a fine tenor with over a half century behind him, tracing his lineage back to the giants of the 50's who were his contemporaries. In a lot of ways, he's freer than Murray and just as hot, and has come to the point where he doesn't need to prove his chops - and because of that, he can blow rings around Murray if he cares to.

If you want to hear what jazz is up to these days, this one is a must have.