It may be premature and overly optimistic to say so, but judging from this duet of improvisers on this release, aptly titled Brass Knuckle Sandwich, it seems that women have come into their own in high-energy jazz and brawny improvised music.

Pianist Marilyn Lerner and trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud definitely pull no punches here and deliver seven solid tracks that keep the listener on the ropes. A blend of lyrical and abstract ideas communicated via extended techniques characterizes the music, as Rampersaud makes extensive use of air through the horn to articulate all kinds of noises and melodic and textural material tumbling along with Lerner’s percolating and multi-timbral rhythms on keyboard. A wide range of emotions run through the seven tracks, from the fiery and insistent Bristles, from the ironically tranquil pointillism of Clamour, to the lyrical long tones and piano ostinato figures of Susurration, the pedal-tone, loose-lipped airiness of Floufe, the pastoral beauty of Evermore, the other-worldly poignancy and study-in-contrasts of Nat.pit.hat, and the grand symphonic proportions of the closer Rizzoo. A lot is packed into this album.

Snippets of lyrical motifs from famous tunes like Body and Soul and some Kenny Wheeler compositions (especially in Rampersaud’s horn on Rizzoo) blend in with elements borrowed from the avant-guard vocabulary established by people like Bill Dixon and Leo Smith, while the piano is reminiscent of a Paul Bley or Mal Waldron with touches of Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor, or at least those are the referential echoes that register with this listener.

Recorded in 2018 at Studio Union Sound in Toronto and engineered and mixed by Jeff Elliott, Brass Knuckle Sandwich is evidence of women not only getting the opportunities they deserve to ply their creative imaginations, but also evidence of impressive mastery of their instruments in service to finely crafted real-time composition.

Polished and powerful as the first part of its name and as layered as the second, Toronto’s Brass Knuckle Sandwich has produced a crunchy but powerful snack of seven in-the-moment improvisations. The duo of pianist Marilyn Lerner and trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud, long-time members of the city’s advanced music community, inventively display every flavorful scintilla of sound from the furthest reaches of their instruments. Lerner clips, pumps and slides over the keys in groups or separately and strums, plucks and buzzes the piano’s internal strings. Making use of tongue-stopping, tone crackling and half-valve effects, Rampersaud’s brass extensions include vocalized blowing, spittle-encrusted squeaks, strangled cries and plunger farts.

Expressing timbres ranging from the dulcet to the dissonant, the two produce a track like Evermore, which from its carefully shaped keyboard introduction to mid-range capillary slurs conveys winnowing motion. Then they abruptly turn around during the following nat.pit.that to contrast the trumpet’s uppermost screech mode with dynamic piano pacing in the most fragmented mode before joining infant-like howls and resonating key clanks into a balanced ambulatory theme. Kinetics may edge out caution on most of the disc, but in spite of numerous advanced motifs, narratives are always fluid. The disc culminates in the almost 15-minute Rizoo, where broken octave creativity including hand muted brass cries and staccato peeps from Rampersaud and bottom board percussiveness and stopped key thumps from Lerner predominate until the track and the CD’s finale settles into a connective mode.

There is something delicate about Marilyn Lerner and Nicole Rampersaud’s playing on Brass Knuckle Sandwich that you miss the first couple of time you play it. At first, it all sounds like broad brushstrokes of sound. That susurration for example. It is all long, shrill, trumpet blasts from Rampersaud and harrowing piano tinkering from Lerner, but after you become a tune to it, you start to realise that there is a fragility to the playing. Lerner isn’t so much filling in the spaces left by Rampersaud, but she is adding patches of light to encounter the raspy blasts. It works fantastically well. We are giving a vibrant performance and an indication of what to expect on the rest of the album.

Evermore is probably the most conventional track. Lerner’s piano is elegant and wouldn’t be out of place being played at a dinner party. The work runs are measured but with a slightly ominous edge. When Rampersaud comes in, around the halfway mark, her playing is more conventional and restrained. It reminds me of the work of Marc Chagall. The paintings are lifelike but there is a level of abstraction to them that takes you by surprise. The same is true here. Lerner is playing some really beautiful motifs. It pulls at the heart, then Rampersaud comes in and, BAM, everything has a slightly off-kilter vibe to it. It’s the strongest track on the album.

At first, I thought that Brass Knuckle Sandwich was an odd title, but after listening to it a few times it makes perfect sense. The knockout punch happened during Rizoo. The final track, Rizoo, is also the one that everything hangs on. The previous six have set out the aims and points for the performances. They have shown Lerner and Rampersaud’s regard, and disregard, for a convention. There have been eloquent melodies and bestially thrashings, but here it all comes together. To being with Lerner is taking the more collected route again. Her controlled work is delightful, with a playfulness that was missing on some of the earlier tracks. As with Evermore it allows you to get comfortable with the piece. Rampersaud is again shrill, then around the halfway mark, the roles switch. Lerner starts to play more abstractly with Rampersaud playing in a more conventional manner. The change happens so slowly you almost miss it until it’s too late. What Rizoo does it break our mindset of the previous six tracks. It changes our perceptions with not only what Lerner and Rampersaud are capable of, but what the album is about.

At its heart, this is an album that likes to play with our ideas of form and composition. It leads us one way then bops us over the head and runs off giggling, like a character in a child’s comic. There is no malice intended, just a thrill of doing it. But what did we expect from two of Canada’s greatest improvisers? This is an album that works as a conversation between gifted, and patient, musicians. They are both taking the time to get their points across, while listening, and considering the others. If only all music was this audacious.