Pianist Nicki Adams and saxophonist Michael Eaton’s duo album The Transcendental, recorded in 2023, stays in Third Stream, a term invented by Gunther Schuller as a way to create a new genre by bringing jazz and European classical music together.

As Eaton explains, We think of ourselves as jazz musicians with some classical training, but our cultural milieu was one where jazz had become a global music.

The debut album Paraphrase prompted The New York City Jazz Record’s Dan Bilawsky to remark, the tracks illuminate the duo’s take on jazz history and where things might be headed next.

1. Crying Out In The Wilderness
2. Intrinsic Value
3. Tres
4. Black Narcissus
5. Capitalinian
6. Afro Centric
7. Myshkin
8. Inner Urge

The new recording opens on the glistening, free flowing Crying Out In The Wilderness and then brings us the organically sculpted Intrinsic Value, the sterner fare of Tres and the twinkling Black Narcissus.

Along next is a playful Capitalinian and the languishing beauty of Afro Centric, and they are in turn backed by the formulated Myshkin, the furtive Inner Urge, the album closing on the six-part opus, the titular The Transcendental.

www.nickiadams.com