Chris Beuscher & Mark Zamcheck
Releases - click for samples and purchase info:

Talking to the Muse - Improvisations

Vernal Equinox

Chris and Mark are Boston area artists who have been playing together on and off in various groups since the early Seventies. They're now working in the format of piano (Mark), and bass (Chris), in a long-term project to develop their improvisational skills to a very high level. They want to take improvisation beyond the common practices of taking solos in the middle of a set piece, or so-called free-form as practiced mostly by jazz players, and some progressive rock groups. What you get mostly is a recital of figures that are already in the musicians' mental libraries - recombinations of riffs already learned and used.
  The goal here is to empty the mind (not hard for these guys), and let the sounds of the moment guide the player's next notes on a purely intuitive level, without allowing one's mental repertoire of musical figures to interfere with the instantaneous decisions about what notes to play. With practice, the hope is to produce pieces with innovative structures and theme development completely on the fly.
  The results can be very gratifying, as the first releases show. But listeners do have to shed some preconceived notions about music. People who are used to having a repetitive meter (a beat), and other audible cues that make music familiar may find it a bit confusing. Don't worry. Take John Lennon's advice - "turn off your mind, relax and float downstream ..."