duo B – “start this before dawn touches the skyscrapers” – [Edgetone Records]

This spinoff of Married Couple, a Bay Area jazz quartet, features Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and Jason Levis on percussion, and together they constitute a strong duo. Their predilection for mixing improv with composition works well on this album, where the songs are spare enough to truly appreciate the precipitation cadence in “Soft White” and the marimbas of “Postmark Tokyo.” The bass may be a stringed instrument, but Mezzacappa can play it percussively, and the result lives up to the intriguing title of the album.