by Thom JurekAmsterdam's jazz saxophone king, Jorrit Dykstra, continues his trio's "guest series" with guitarist Stuart Hall for a session of jagged-edge-swinging, hard bopping, and avant exploration. Recorded in 1994 before the Dutch Jazz Foundation awarded him its highest prize, Dykstra here reveals the added tonal and melodic inventions possible with an additional instrument on the front line -- particularly in the modal numbers. Bassist Steve Arguëlles and drummer Mischa Kool adapt well to Hall's understated chromatic style of play. Hall and Dykstra are both color players, though Dykstra's manner is much more dynamic and forceful (guess that's why he's the leader), but as demonstrated on the title track and its follow-up, "Tikkertje," Hall's muted color style that offers chromaticism in lieu of firepower also offers a deeper well for Dykstra to draw from melodically and harmonically. When Hall mutes the instruments and plays banjo or quartertone guitar, he creates a series of chromatic microtones that leave Dykstra free to examine the timbral aspects of mode and interval, how they change over, and the place where the seam blurs between composition and improvisation. In addition, there is a furious language of counterpoint going back and forth from the choppy, march-style rhythm of the pieces to the melodic ornamentation in being played out of pitch; it resembles Korean folk music more than standard jazz. Near the end of the album, on "Stills & Frills," another Dykstra composition, Dykstra's clarinet and the quartertone guitar share a contrapuntal melody with a rollover rhythm in 9/8 by Kool. Arguëlles moves the piece forward by the virtue that he's the only one holding the knotty melody together rhythmically. Kool is off to solo before a minute has passed, leaving the two front-line players in the lurch, but it turns out to be a syncopation ruse as the tune segues into "Rachabane," which owes to its folksy beauty as much to Bill Frisell's lyricism as it does to Dykstra's ability to meld Eastern and Western European folk music into his compositions. It sounds like Frisell meeting Johnny Dyani in a session for Sonny Rollins' Reel Time album. Actually, it's too bad Hall didn't become a regular member of this band -- the free and easy rapport between the four is evident in how relaxed the musical invention is, no matter how adventurous it gets. No matter, though; it's a wonderful introduction to the Dykstra Trio at the beginning of their maturity as a band.