Saxophone masters Eric Alexander and Vincent Herring reunite for a third explosive album, recorded live at SMOKE Jazz Club, alongside Mike LeDonne, John Webber, and Lewis Nash. Split Decision celebrates the 20th anniversary of their first musical showdown, two decades after their initial onstage confrontation. This highly anticipated new meeting marks the third chapter in a fiery trilogy captured live in the heart of the legendary New York club. If the 2005 concert series “The Battle” was in keeping with the tradition of hard-hitting saxophone duels, their second encounter, Friendly Fire in 2011, revealed exchanges that were just as intense but marked by a sense of camaraderie. With Split Decision, Alexander and Herring reach a kind of musical ease: two masters responding to each other on equal footing, where “victory” is now only a matter of taste — and not of technical one-upmanship.