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Inside
51 / Jazz
54 / Blues
58 / Beyond
65 / Historical
67 / Books
Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard
The Magic Of 2
Resonance 2013
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Jaki Byard (left) and
Tommy Flanagan
The pleasure of two pianists in tandem ideally
comes in the ricocheting tension of contrasting
identities engaging one another in close-quarter
debate. Think of the Count Basie-Oscar Peterson
Pablo duets of the ’70s. And now this 1982 meeting
of Tommy Flanagan and Jaki Byard in San
Francisco’s Keystone Korner
When the contrasts come, they are not so
much between the players as within them.
Especially Byard. He serves up such an aggressive
vocabulary of piano styles, he can turn a relatively
brief tune into a procession of keyboard reference
points. In three minutes of “Land Of Make
Believe,” he leads us through a brooding romanticism,
a zig-zag whirlpool of prickly arpeggios,
expansive chords, rumbling tremolos and a quick
and witty endpoint. “Sunday” suggests a modern
take on Fats Waller first, then at around the
two-minute mark drops behind the beat in the
Erroll Garner manner. He loves quick changes in
temperature and a strong, sometimes rolling left
hand. Flanagan is the less melodramatic, eccentric
and percussive of the two. His solo features
favor the Duke Ellington/Billy Straythorn book,
which embody adult romance without the pastel
sentiments. Even inside “Chelsea Bridge,” he can’t
resist a brief quote of “Lush Life.”
Where Byard can be acerbic and bold,
Flanagan tends toward a clever and poised elegance.
But such contrasts are slightly smudged
here. Only five of the 11 pieces here are duets; six
are stand-alone solo features. More important, the
original Keystone tapes, otherwise excellent, deny
each player his own physical space and discrete
identity. So the listener has to reach out for that
sense of duality and conversation, particularly on
“Just One Of Those Things” and “The Theme,”
where the players volley eights to one another like
a couple of tennis masters on the same side of the
net. Both these men were (and remain) master
modernists whose reputations have grown posthumously.
But they play to one another’s most
natural instincts when the material is transparent
and second nature. —John McDonough
tom copi
Magic Of 2: Scrapple From The Apple; Just One Of Those Things;
Satin Doll; Something To Live For; Our Delight; All Day Long; Sunday;
Chelsea Bridge; Land Of Make Believe; Theme. (56:56)
Personnel: Tommy Flanagan, Jaki Byard, piano.
Ordering info: resonancerecords.org
JULY 2013 DOWNBEAT 45