An innovative and very appealing new disc by David Kechley featuring a new version of In the Dragon's Garden, Winner of the 1994 Lee Ettelson Prize. Marimbist, Gordon Stout and the Empire Saxophone Quartet start it off as they create a fresh new sound with VALENCIA: Iberian Musings. Stout is an amazing technician, but it is his musical sensitivity that really makes this performance a special one. Listen to the opening of Prayer and Lament with Interjections, which begins with marimba alone. This is a timeless moment which sets up a soulful and very lyrical soprano solo by Steven Mauk shortly after. The closing movement, Please Refrain… is a rhythmic and textural delight! The second work, DRIVELINE: A Powerwalk for Guitar and Alto Saxophone is Kechley's second work for the Ryoanji Duo and just as its older sister, In the Dragon's Garden, it is a demanding and virtuoso piece, but in a much different way. The middle section features a role reversal with a slow tremolo melody in the guitar "accompanied" by broken intervals in the saxophone. Tracks 5-8 feature the Empire Saxophone Quartet performing Stepping Out, one of the composer's most popular saxophone pieces. Its four movements range in style from Minimum Overdrive, a minimalist spoof to Midnight Reflection, a sparse and even pointalistic opening giving way to a sustained and expressive climax, to Anonymous, another spoof, this time with a medieval reference. The work ends with An Easy Burden, a warm and melodic piece designed to make the listener feel good, whose strains are remembered long after the rich open fifths with which it concludes. Robert Nathanson and Frank Bongiorno of the Ryoanji Duo give a sizzling performance of In the Dragon's Garden, a piece they have come to "own" since they premiered it at the 1992 World Saxophone Congress in Pesaro, Italy. It would be difficult to follow this performance and this intense and intricate work with anything else. Perhaps this is why the entire disc bears the name of this work!