1. Chorinho
2. Double Rainbow
3. Ana Maria
4. The Saros Cycle
5. My Man's Gone Now
6. Dancing in the Dark
7. Inner Urge
8. Little Glory
9. Never Will I Marry
Bill Charlap, Renee Rosnes - Pianos
This is the first album that pianists Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes have recorded together, although they first played duets together in 2003 on a tour in Japan where ten pianists played together in various permutations. The two were married in 2007, so this CD should exhibit togetherness, which is what it does supremely well. In fact the togetherness is so close that you can't always distinguish one piano from the other.
I think I've mentioned before on this website how, as a young lad on seaside holidays, I loved attending summer shows, where the music was often provided by piano duettists, sometimes with a drummer. The distinctive plinky-plunky sound they made is not really something that you want to be reminded of in a jazz performance. Charlap and Rosnes easily avoid this: on the first two tracks using the device of one pianist providing rhythmic accompaniment to the other's improvisation. In Lyle Mays' catchy Chorinho, one pianist maintains a bouncing beat while the other indulges in flights of fancy. Antonio Carlos Jobim''s composition Double Rainbow is delightfully fluid, with one piano supporting the other with rhythmic figures..
There is a more equal distribution of labour in the remaining tunes, with the partners seemingly fusing into a single entity, making glorious music. The sleeve-note doesn't tell us which channel each pianist is on, but it hardly seems to matter. However, the sleeve does mention that Bill and Renee "are Steinway Artists" and they avoid the hard edge which the Steinway gives to some pianists. Wayne's Shorter's Ana Maria seems more serious than the previous tracks, with the duettists listening closely to one another, especially in matching the dynamics.
Renee Rosnes' own The Saros Cycle (apparently a cycle used for predicting eclipses) is cool and pensive. My favourite track - on an album without a dud one - is My Man's Gone Now, a truly sensitive reading of one of George Gershwin's greatest songs. Dancing in the Dark returns to the format of the two opening tracks, with one duettist supplying spacious chords for the other to improvise over.
Inner Urge (written by Joe Henderson) is a rich outpouring of notes and an almost fierce interchange of ideas between the two pianists. Gerry Mulligan's Little Glory is slow and measured, with pauses that say as much as when the duettists are playing. The CD ends with the slightly tongue-in-cheek Never Will I Marry - composed by Frank Loesser, who encouraged Charlap's father as a composer. The duo chose the tune because of its melody and because it is, as Renee says, "underexposed". It gets a sprightly performance which rounds off the album buoyantly.
The recording, made at New York's Kaufmann Concert Hall in December 2009, is perfectly clear, with just the right amount of resonance. Bill Charlap was spot-on when he said about duets with his wife: "When we're playing two pianos...it's not me playing and Renee playing, but the two of us creating something where the whole is greater than the parts".
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Blue Note 509996 27560 2 0
