Bill Charlap & Renee Rosnes, Double Portrait (Blue Note). When Charlap and Rosnes married in 2007, it was logical 
to expect that an album of duets would follow. Now, it’s here, the collaboration of two of the most complete pianists in any genre of music. Considerations of domestic compatibility aside, piano duos that involve improvisation demand aspects of musicianship that go beyond technical ability. Among them is the capacity to anticipate and accommodate the partner’s harmonic thinking and rhythmic proclivities. Without that crucial essential of artistry, train wrecks or—at the least—non-injury derailings are inevitable.
This happy couple has nary a mishap. Their intuitive control of the interlocking dynamics of two Steinways results in delicacy of tonal shadings in Wayne Shorter’s “Ana Maria,” Gerry Mulligan’s “Little Glory” and Gershwin’s “My Man’s Gone Now,” the longest and most achingly beautiful track in the album. It allows smooth and powerful locomotion in
Joe Henderson’s muscular “Inner Urge” and a joyful exchange of ideas in Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Double Rainbow.” Rosnes and Charlap evoke an urge to samba (fast) in Lyle Mays’s “Chorinho.” “Dancing in the Dark” is evidence that a brisk tempo need not be the enemy of lyricism. Their twin cascade of sixteenth notes in the coda of that piece is a wonder of metric coordination. The title of Rosnes’s “The Saros Cycle” alludes to the frequency pattern of lunar and solar eclipses, which may account for not only the piece’s cyclical structure but also its air of celestial mystery. They conclude with sparks of whimsy in Frank Loesser’s “Never Will I Marry.” Throughout, the pianism and the creativity are at the highest level.
There has been a number of superb two-piano teams in jazz. To mention a few: Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis; Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan; Earl Hines and Jaki Byard; Don Ewell and Armand Hug; Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock; Dick Wellstood and Dick Hyman; and, of course, Bill Evans and Bill Evans. Charlap and Rosnes are in that company.
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
You forgot one important duo piano team:
Marian McPartland and just about everyone!
A belated congratulations for winning the Best Blog Award at the Jazz Journalist Association Awards earlier this week.
It was well deserved.
Many great pianists just didn’t connect with a keyboards friend or rival, it seems; think of Tatum and Monk, Powell and Peterson, gents who just filled all 88 with no assistance required, or even welcomed. But I believe Ellington should make the duets list… somehow. Duke and his right hand, Billy Strayhorn? Duke and Count Basie, the two barely there at the same moment? Duke and some ghostly echo, some lesser Ellington? Duke and Jimmy Blanton, a new kind of strings duet? Duke and Johnny Hodges, two heads on the same coin? I realize I’m struggling here, but this just seems like a rollcall that Ellington would lay claim to… somehow. (Don’t shoot, he’s only the piano player… manque.)
(The posting said “To mention a few…”. It wasn’t intended to be a compendium. I could have listed Peterson and Basie, Peterson and Andre Previn, Previn and Russ Freeman, Ellington and Strayhorn and, naturally, as Ken Dryden pointed out, Marian McP and everyone. We welcome all two-piano-sans-rhythm-section entries in the sweepstakes. There are no winners and no prizes, only glory.—DR)
There is a two piano disc that I’d like to mention for consideration, and that’s the Hampton Hawes/Martial Solal record “Key For Two”…
http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=m2mpv2m4qh&ref=browse.php&refQ=kwfilter%3DHampton%2BHawes%26amp%3Bincl_oos%3D1%26amp%3Bincl_cs%3D1%26amp%3Bformat%3Dall
Now, it is with rhythm-section actually, but, no matter, I think of it as the single most successful 2-piano record I know… (I even think of it as Hampton Hawes’ greatest record, which is saying something…).
I haaaate piano duos … never heard one that I didn’t think sounded just like some squabbling old married couple, but DOUBLE PORTRAIT is the glorious exception. I have been splashing joyfully in its cool waters. It is one of the most romantic recordings I’ve ever heard. It’s quite astonishing that with this work they invite us all to observe and share their passion for music and one another. If the technology had existed, we’d surely possess a similar legacy of love’s synchronization between Clara and Robert Schumann.