2014 · Album
In Pursuit of Magic
Recorded 2013 · 482 Music · Personnel: [Roscoe Mitchell] saxophone, flute; [Mike Reed] drums
Two Voices in Deep Conversation
Mitchell shifts between saxophones and flutes while Reed's drumming becomes both launching pad and backdrop for extraordinarily long, convoluted linear forays.
In Pursuit of Magic arrived as a document of two musicians at ease with each other, recorded live in 2013 when Roscoe Mitchell and Mike Reed had already developed a working relationship grounded in mutual trust. This wasn't a novelty pairing or a session engineered for maximum impact — it was work by artists who knew what they wanted from each other. Bill Meyer's review in the Chicago Reader caught what matters most: the way Mitchell moves between instruments becomes a kind of questioning, and Reed answers not by following but by shifting the ground underneath. His drumming swells and recedes, sometimes driving hard, sometimes just holding space, never settling into a groove that would make things easy.
What you hear across these live performances is conversation at the highest level of abstraction. Mitchell doesn't solo over Reed; they're building something together where the saxophone or flute line and the drums are equally responsible for where the music goes next. There's no wasted motion, but plenty of space for surprise. Reed's sensitivity to dynamics — his brushwork as much as his stick work — means Mitchell can take those long, convoluted runs Meyer mentioned without ever losing the listener. The saxophone textures shift constantly, from breathy and almost vocal to sharp and declarative.
This is the kind of album that doesn't demand a large audience to justify its existence. It's work for people who care about what happens when two master improvisers trust each other enough to follow an idea wherever it leads, even when the path is unclear. Mitchell was already a veteran by 2013, and Reed had spent years earning the kind of listening skills this music requires. The result is focused and alive.
