The saxophone–drum duo has a long history in free jazz—a primal pairing that achieved an early high in the 1967 John Coltrane and Rashied Ali recording called Interstellar Space. Such fire-breathing antecedents might seem distant from the music of English saxophonist John Butcher, often concerned as it is with acoustic resonances, sounds found in the saxophone’s nooks and crannies, and the layering of harmonics in richly textured improvisations. But Butcher and percussionist Mark Sanders often touch here on the free-jazz ritual of energized liberation. The title Daylight derives from the music occurring in two afternoon performances in 2010 and 2011. The opening Ropedance is a half-hour tour, with Sanders creating both rhythmic fields and minimalist melodic phrases, while Butcher manages to execute lines with a dense multiphonic sound. Nothing is stable here and the two wander through diverse phases until they achieve unity, Butcher’s saxophone seemingly part of Sanders’ drum-kit. On the shorter Flicker, the two individually explore high and low pitches, ultimately creating multiple levels of simultaneous exchange. After some eerie ceremonial bowing and multiphonics, Glowstick seems to celebrate the lineage, with Butcher offering coiling, trilling, soprano saxophone lines in the spirit of John Coltrane. The instrumentation has rarely inspired the variety of timbres or the identity transfers achieved here.