William Parker, Giorgio Dini, Temporary [Silta]

Two avant-leaning upright jazz bassists veteran musical provocateur William Parker and classically trained Italian player Giorgio Dini meet for five open improvisations that are likely to strike listeners as either rarefied sonic nirvana or moderately difficult listening. With Parker primarily on the right channel and Dini mainly on the left, the two travel from the opening “preludio,” marked by long, rumbling arco lines, combing, recombining, and building to a fierce intensity, to the closing, 18-minute “danza e finale,” injected with bowed harmonics, shaking bells, and Parker’s drumming on the bass body. It would be a stretch to call these textures rangy, but the variety of sounds they elicit from their instruments is often astonishing.