An average of one album every other year is pretty good going for a free jazz collective, and that's what The Nu Band has achieved. Its fifth, Live In Paris, comes ten years after their first communion in 2000. It's also a departure, not in that it is a concert recording as there are already three of those in the discography, but in that, for the first time, the quartet showcases its considerable talents at instant composition.

Reedman Mark Whitecage's résumé numbers two fine, though overlooked, examples on the CIMP label in Consensual Tension (1997) and Research On The Edge (1999), while trumpeter Roy Campbell is a past master of ensemble improvisation, exemplified by his participation in the feted Other Dimensions in Music. Nor are bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Lou Grassi strangers to such unfettered expression.