In consecutive seasons, French clarinettist Louis Sclavis returns himself to the drawing board. Contemporaries may have long since settled upon a single instrumental style, or a congruent ensemble approach refined over the years, but Sclavis (b. 1953 in Lyon) keeps looking for different angles from which to view improvisation, composition, and musical interaction. In a major interview in France s Jazz Magazine, looking back over an unorthodox 40-year career, Sclavis allowed that each of his recent ensembles could be considered a little laboratory , and perhaps most especially the newest one...