The Bleeding Edge brings together three brilliant acoustic improvisers of different continents and generations in a program of trios and duos: English saxophonist Evan Parker, Korean cellist Okkyung Lee and American trumpeter Peter Evans. There is a special empathy between Parker and Evans, since Evans has—sometimes astonishingly—managed to find equivalents to many of Parker’s innovative saxophone techniques on the trumpet: circular breathing; multiphonics; and even a kind of counterpoint. It’s clear immediately, though, that Lee brings just as much to the encounter in terms of instantaneous initiation, response, and execution of musical lines. The quality of the music depends on a significant distinction: these aren’t simply virtuosos improvising, they’re virtuoso improvisers, their skills specifically focused on the mutual creation of spontaneous music. There is everywhere here an alertness to the instant, to the new inference, but what makes it special is the individual and collective ability to knit this music together in extended units, initiating content as a matter of form, part of a continuum that will still be working itself out a few minutes and a thousand notes later. Highlights abound, but it’s the sustained creation and clarity of line that matter most, an intense reminder of why Parker named his record label psi.