Pierre-Antoine Badaroux / Jean-Luc Guionnet / Jim Baker / Jason Roebke

The latest pre-pandemic chapter of the ongoing US-France The Bridge teamwork, the three improvisations that make up Forget to Find preceded an aborted European tour by this quartet. Perhaps playing live narrows the gap, but on the CD while individual music expression is accomplished, the Gallic and Yank players don’t seem to attain integration.

That’s odd since all are accomplished players. Of the two French players, alto saxophonist Pierre-Antoine Badaroux is a member of the Umlaut big band; Jean-Luc Guionnet, the other alto saxophonist is part of Hubbub and his own projects. Keyboardist Jim Baker has worked with everyone from Fred Anderson to Mars Williams, while bassist Jason Roebke works with the likes of Jason Stein.

Building up to the extended final track, guttural reed slurs and whistling peeps from either saxophonist jiggle against one another’s air expelling or intersect with either slap bass thumps or crackling synthesizer vibrations. But while fire engine-like ARP cries, thick string bowing and dissected reed slithers and stabs shrill and undulate, narrative affiliation and reciprocity appears at a minimum. Attempts to create linkage on the concluding “Find” are more coordinated, although one saxophonist’s duck-like quacks only graze discursive piano lines, with similar deflection obvious when wriggling peeps deflect from bass string pressure. Despite a team approach, when both saxophonists – one with altissimo cries and the other propelling repeated thin puffs – meet synthesizer throbs, the disconnect end with downward programmed modulations and a slide to group silence.

Dual country bridging is an important musical concept that should be encouraged. While notable elsewhere, this session apparently forget how to find its point of congruence.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Forget 2. To 3. Find

Personnel: Pierre-Antoine Badaroux and Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto saxophone); Jim Baker (Arp2600 synthesizer and piano) and Jason Roebke (bass)