While there's no shortage of protean young improvisers in New York, Shaw benefits from an increasingly rare commodity: a real-world apprenticeship with a master musician.
Among improvisers, it is hard to think of anyone more distinctive than Jan Garbarek, a Norwegian saxophonist who has permanently expanded the scope of jazz to include Nordic traditions.
Though his dialogue, spoken with the charming hesitation of inexperienced improvisers, conveys the tensions of the postcollegiate proletariat caught between big dreams and petty realities, Swanberg most faithfully captures the sound of artistic creativity today in bursts of tapping on laptop keyboards.