At Home and on the Range: The Duo Live

For decades, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger have applied their instrumental chops in all sorts of high-powered acoustic ensembles, both together (in the dazzling late-'70s David Grisman Quintet, the '80s Windham Hill group Montreux, and, more recently, Psychograss, NewGrange, and the jam-oriented Anger/Marshall Band) and separately (Anger's Turtle Island String Quartet and Marshall's Modern Mandolin Quartet). But as this duo set demonstrates, these easygoing virtuosos need no band support to head off on some wild instrumental adventures. Constitutionally eclectic, they travel from Bill Monroe tunes to Ireland (the ever-popular "Shebag, Shemor") and Sweden ("V¤sen Your Seat Belt") to Marshall's unclassifiable originals (mandocello funk on "Gator Strut"). The fiddle, mandolin, and guitar work is state of the art, effortlessly swinging and telepathically in sync from nearly a quarter century of making music together. Liner notes by surrealist songwriter Patrick Brayer complete a fine portrait of two musicians at the top of their game. --Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers