Jack Mouse and Scott Robinson have known and played with each other for years, but the realization of a completely spontaneous duet album didn’t happen until Snakeheads & Ladybugs rolled around. Perhaps they were both just busy, always putting off this album that was “30 years in the making.” They certainly didn’t need 30 years to practice. Robinson, a true multi-instrumentalist, plays four instruments on Snakeheads & Ladybugs — tenor sax, C-melody sax, cornet and clarinet. Jack Mouse takes his role on as an auxiliary painter rather than a timekeeper.
Snakeheads & Ladybugs is divvied up into 12 tracks, but it plays out more like a 50-minute blob with a start, a middle and a conclusion. There are titles such as “Two Minute March”, “Funk Infestation” and “Fandango”, but Robinson and Mouse are clearly playing off one another just to see where the music can take them rather than where they can take the music. So this isn’t really an album, but a performance — and a delightful one at that.