I'm filled with the free-improvisational spirit this month. Mid-winter has included lots of record listening, and one fantastic live show featuring drummer Susie Ibarra and her husband, saxophonist Assif Tsahar. Ibarra is best known for her work in the David S. Ware Quartet. That position has led to a number of other opportunities, including her album of drum duets with the late Denis Charles, Drum Talk, and Home Cookin', the first Ibarra/Tsahar duet album, released on their own Hopscotch Records. The bulk of Home Cookin' was recorded one afternoon at the Knitting Factory, on what must have been a particularly emotional day for Tsahar. Their interplay is telepathic, and Tsahar's bent notes exhibit a rare sensuousness and depth of sorrow (at times you fear for the man's well-being, the passions are so penetrating and harrowing), while Ibarra's sympathetic drumming rises and falls, but retains a sharp musicality of its own. The second half finds the plucky duo gathering their collection of 'little instruments' in their living room and just letting it rip. These short interludes, which they call 'dream songs,' provide a playful balance with the more intense drum/sax recordings.