Year: 2008
Record Label: Whaling City Sound
Style: Straight-Ahead / Classic
Review: This is one of those intimate encounters between two estimable jazz pros that gels in rather exquisite fashion. Guitarists John Abercrombie and Joe Beck offer insight into how two divergent and signature styles can coalesce for a program that pronounces music-merriment. With their lightly-amplified guitars, the duo trade fours, comp and often tiptoe through originals and standards. And it’s partly about jazz marksmanship coupled with nuance and texture. Complete with buoyant grooves and a potpourri of variable metrics, the artists’ radiant intonations and animated voicings provide just a few dynamic elements exercised throughout.
At times, the duo sounds as though they’re performing in your living space. Featuring their gently rendered harmonics, rippling single-note flurries and a great sense of depth, they also engage in peek-a-boo type dialogues that interweave and flourish. On “How Deep is the Ocean,” they venture into an up-tempo sequence of linearly constructed solos but crank it up some via a walking blues strut on “Mikey Likes It.”
The guitarists’ emit tension and release type soloing over a sprightly 4/4 pulse during Miles Davis’ classic, “All Blues.” But temper the pitch within the blissful ballad titled “The Turnaround.” No train wrecks or overwrought technical gymnastics here. As it becomes quite discernible from the onset that we are hearing two proven masters, working like kindred spirits. A superfine endeavor it is.
Record Label Website: http://www.whalingcitysound.com
Reviewed by:
Glenn Astarita
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